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Ukraine’s strike on Russian air base sends a message: Putin is losing

If the Ukrainian strike on Saky military base in the Novofedorivka region of Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday can be attributed to the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), then once again, Moscow’s much-vaunted S-400 air defense system has failed. While there has been no shortage of speculation, the two most likely courses of action delivering the hit were HIMARS and/or Ukrainian special forces.

Reports suggest Ukrainian special forces have received training and equipment from U.S. Special Forces and British Special Air Service to conduct operations behind enemy lines. As a result, they have been given credit for several attacks in Russian-occupied territory.

If it was the use of HIMARS, the S-400 would have proven itself unreliable under kinetic fire, revealing a vulnerability: the inability to defend Russian air force assets at Saky, command and control centers, and ammunition and fuel depots. Equally important, it would strike at the psyche of Russian soldiers who rely on this “safety blanket” for protection. Their exposure would be yet another blow to morale.

“If” is the key word here, of course. With just a look at Google Maps, one can discern that the Crimean base is easily 200 kilometers from the nearest probable Ukrainian HIMARS position — well short of the range that U.S.-provided munitions could achieve. However, Lockheed Martin sold HIMARS to Poland in 2017 and Romania in 2018. (The Romanian HIMARS-equipped 8th Tactical Operational Missile Brigade completed training in June at the Romanian National Training Center for Anti-aircraft Defense, test-firing the three systems delivered in February 2021.) And since NATO countries supplied Ukraine with weapons when the United States initially balked at doing so, either Poland or Romania could have provided munitions to target the Russian base. With a range up to 300 kilometers, striking the base would be possible.  

Russia has used the air base in Crimea to launch airstrikes into southern Ukraine. Initial reports suggest as many as nine Russian aircraft were destroyed in the attack, while many Russian civilians were spending a sunny day at a nearby coastal beach, as if oblivious to Vladimir Putin’s war going on a couple hundred kilometers to their north — until it found them.

Mindful that any attack on Crimea would trigger massive retaliation, including strikes on the capital, Ukraine has not taken responsibility for the attack. The Russian explanation of a “mishandling of explosives” doesn’t seem to match the destruction or battle damage assessment. Their response was basically a play on the famous line from the “Wizard of Oz” — ”Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Russian civilians, however, know what they saw and felt. To them, the war just got real — or, in Putin’s parlance, the “special operation” now includes them.

Perception can be confused with reality, of course, and sometimes saying nothing adds to fear of the unknown. Ukraine has demonstrated it can win in psychological operations. Whether HIMARS or Ukrainian Special Forces conducted this attack — or even a cruise missile, as some suggest — it sent a message: Russian soldiers are not safe anywhere in Ukraine. The attack was bold, happening during the light of day.

If Russian beach-goers had found a message in a bottle that day, it might have said: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy still considers Crimea a part of Ukraine. Go home alive, while you can.”  

The success of the strike on Saky demonstrates what Ukrainian fighters can accomplish, given the tools they need — especially variants that can strike behind Russian lines in Ukraine. Russian soldiers felt Ukraine’s wrath, and Russian civilians in Crimea now know they are not immune to the war, one that their country is losing. The Biden administration must reconsider providing Ukraine the full complement of HIMARS munitions.

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14, working with NATO partners in the Black Sea and Baltics. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.

Mark Toth is a retired economist, historian and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing and global commerce. He is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, and has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world, including London, Tel Aviv, Augsburg and Nagoya. Follow him on Twitter @MCTothSTL. 

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House Democrats advance tax and climate bill, kicking off debate

House Democrats advanced their multi-billion dollar climate, tax and health care bill on Friday, teeing up final passage of the legislation that is key to President Biden’s domestic agenda later in the day.

The House approved the rule for the bill, titled the Inflation Reduction Act, in a party-line 219-208 vote, opening three hours of debate equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. Three Republicans and one Democrat did not vote.

Final passage is slated for around 3 p.m., barring any unexpected hiccups, though it is possible the timing changes. Republicans may deploy delay tactics to drag out consideration of the bill, which could push final passage to later in the day.

The Senate cleared the tax-and-spending package in a party-line vote Sunday afternoon, with Vice President Harris casting the tie-breaking vote to send the legislation to the House.

The $740 billion bill includes provisions to increase taxes on corporations, address climate change, decrease the prices of prescription drugs and bring down the deficit.

It would provide incentives to businesses for deploying reduced-carbon and carbon-free energy sources, create programs to increase investment in climate and allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for some drugs, among other provisions.

The bill establishes new taxes on corporations to subsidize the new climate and health care measures. The main tax provision is a 15 percent minimum tax on income large corporations report to shareholders, commonly referred to as a minimum book tax.

The measure also provides $80 billion to improve enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — which Democrats hope will allow the IRS to better monitor wealthy individuals to make sure they are not evading taxes — and it calls for a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks.

Senate passage marked the culmination of more than a year of negotiations between Democrats for a bill that would address climate change and health care, key parts of Biden’s domestic agenda.

The upper chamber cleared the bill through budget reconciliation, a process that allowed the caucus to pass the measure with a simple majority, bypassing a GOP filibuster.

The House passed a larger social spending and climate package, dubbed the Build Back Better Act, in November, but the roughly $2 trillion measure was blocked in the Senate after centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he could not support the legislation.

Manchin killed another round of talks for a spending package in July, telling leaders that he would not back legislation with climate provisions or new tax hikes on corporations or wealthy individuals. He has been concerned about rising inflation.

But late last month, the West Virginia Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced a new deal, the Inflation Reduction Act, making another attempt at passing a spending package. The legislation secured support from centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) after further negotiations days later, paving the way for Senate passage.

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FBI agents found dozens of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago search: sources

(NewsNation) — FBI agents found dozens of classified documents during their search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago on Monday, sources confirmed to NewsNation.

Investigators discovered classified documents in two areas: Trump’s personal office above a ballroom and in a storage room near the pool. Sources say there were “boxes everywhere,” with some containing Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). Those are considered some of the highest level of classified documents.

Since the documents are so secretive, it’s unknown whether investigators will ever publicly acknowledge what they’re in reference to, let alone release them.

Classified nuclear weapons documents may have been among the items the FBI found, according to a source cited by the Washington Post.

Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke publicly for the first time Thursday about the FBI search of Trump’s home, and although he did not reveal what the FBI was looking for, he did say he approved the search.

Garland said he would be asking a court to unseal the search warrant. Trump said Thursday night he doesn’t oppose its release and encouraged it to be unsealed immediately.

The judge has set a deadline of 3 p.m. Friday for Trump’s legal team to decide if they are going to object to the release of the warrant.

Questions have been circulating about exactly what it was the FBI was looking for and why they would engage in the unprecedented search of a former president’s home. According to the Washington Post, it may have been because federal authorities worried sensitive nuclear documents possibly in Trump’s possession could fall into the wrong hands.

The New York Times then reported Thursday night that the search was focused around material relating to “some of the most highly classified programs run by the United States,” according to an anonymous source cited by that publication.

The Washington Post’s source, which was anonymous, did not say whether or not any nuclear weapons documents were found in the home.

Sources confirmed to NewsNation that the execution of the search warrant is linked to an investigation into whether or not the former president mishandled presidential records related to the discovery of boxes full of White House records that were taken to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office.

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb said on NewsNation’s “On Balance: With Leland Vittert” on Thursday that they were surprised by the FBI raid on Trump’s home, having believed to that point they had cooperated amply with federal investigators.

Bobb said Trump handed over everything investigators had asked for prior to the search. Federal authorities indicated otherwise with the search.

Neither the Department of Justice nor Trump’s legal team have made the search warrant or search receipt public yet.

Bobb said the Trump legal team would be open to making the documents public, but needed to confer with the Justice Department first.

“We’re waiting to hear back from them,” Bobb told NewsNation. “We’re very eager. We know that people want information, and we’re eager to respond as best as possible in coordination with the Department of Justice so we’re just waiting to hear back from them.”

Trump called the search of his estate a “surprise attack” and alleged it was a “targeted raid.”

“In early June, the DOJ and FBI asked my legal representatives to put an extra lock on the door leading to the place where boxes were stored in Mar-a-Lago — We agreed. They were shown the secured area, and the boxes themselves. Then on Monday, without notification or warning, an army of agents broke into Mar-a-Lago, went to the same storage area, and ripped open the lock that they had asked to be installed. A surprise attack,” Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social.

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Florida publishes rule barring Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming health care

Transgender Medicaid recipients in Florida will no longer be able to use Medicaid to cover gender-affirming health care under a new state rule that will take effect later this month.

The rule published Wednesday by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which controls most of the state’s Medicaid program, eliminates coverage for gender-affirming health care for transgender Floridians of all ages. It will go into effect Aug. 21.

Under the rule, Florida residents will no longer be allowed to use Medicaid to help pay for puberty blockers, hormones, gender-affirming surgeries or “any other procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics” when those procedures are used to treat gender dysphoria.

In a joint statement on Thursday, Lambda Legal, the Southern Legal Counsel, the Florida Health Justice Project and the National Health Law Program called the move “medically and scientifically unsound” and said it was politically motivated.

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“This rule represents a dangerous escalation in Governor DeSantis’s political zeal to persecute LGBTQ+ people in Florida, and particularly transgender youth,” the groups wrote. In March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law a measure that heavily restricts how public school teachers may speak to their students about gender identity and sexual orientation, accusing educators of trying to “sow doubt” in children about their gender.

DeSantis earlier this month suspended Andrew Warren, an elected state attorney in Tampa, after Warren said he would not prosecute people who receive abortions or gender-affirming medical care in Florida. The governor said Warren was a supporter of “disfiguring young kids.”

In June, the AHCA in a report said several treatments for gender dysphoria, including puberty blockers and hormones, are inconsistent with “generally accepted professional medical standards,” calling them “experimental” and “investigational.”

Most major medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, reject insurance exclusions for gender-affirming health care, which they say is medically necessary and often life-saving.

The AHCA report has been criticized by clinicians who treat transgender patients as being “unscientific,” and has been accused of relying on research from doctors with anti-transgender biases, including experts from the American College of Pediatricians – an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has contested this designation.

Florida now joins eight other states with Medicaid programs that explicitly exclude coverage for gender-affirming health care, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks such measures. Exceptions include Ohio, where officials have said the ban is not being enforced, and Arkansas, whose 2021 Medicaid ban only applies to minors.

Judges in Georgia and West Virginia recently ruled that the states’ Medicaid programs could not exclude coverage for gender-affirming surgical care.

The Florida Board of Medicine last week voted to initiate the rule-making process to establish a new standard of care for transgender youth based on recommendations from the state Health Department.

“Given the lack of quality evidence in support of gender transition treatments, the use of such treatments for gender dysphoria should be considered experimental and should require fully informed consent of the risks and limitations,” a petition filed earlier this month by the department states.

It adds that youth younger than 18 do not possess the “cognitive or emotional maturity” to comprehend the consequences of receiving gender-affirming medical care.

Guidance issued by Florida’s Health Department in April drew sharp criticism over a suggestion that gender-affirming health care – including social transition – should not be accessible to minors at all.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump's ignoring legitimate legal recourse — that speaks volumes

Former President Donald Trump has characteristically growled, yapped and roared against the FBI’s execution of a warrant issued by an independent federal judge authorizing a particularized search for evidence of crimes in his Mar-a-Logo residence — potentially destruction of presidential records or unauthorized sharing of classified information. Trump’s appointee, FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was confirmed by a 92-5 Senate majority with only Democrats in opposition, supervised the search.   

Actions speak louder than words. Trump has scampered away from available immediate legal challenges to the FBI search — a tacit concession that his semi-hysterical histrionics are sound and fury signifying nothing. 

Rule 41 (g) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure authorizes Trump to file suit demanding a return of all materials seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago by proof that the search warrant or its execution was legally defective. The text is clear to persons unschooled in the law: “A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property’s return…The court must receive evidence on any factual issue necessary to decide the motion. If it grants the motion, the court must return the property to the movant.” None among the former president’s long roster of lawyers has questioned the legality of the search under Rule 41 (g).  

A valid search warrant requires the issuing judge to be neutral, and that probable cause exists to believe that evidence of a crime will be discovered in the places to be searched. Fishing expeditions or raids are unconstitutional. The Fourth Amendment requires warrants to “particularly [describe] the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”    

Furthermore, under Criminal Rule 41 (f), the FBI must prepare an inventory of the property seized and the “officer executing the warrant must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt of the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premises the property was taken.” On Thursday via social media, Trump requested the release of documents related to his search warrant — after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Justice Department had petitioned courts to unseal the documents.

Additionally, under the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents (1971), Trump could sue FBI agents for damages for violation of his Fourth Amendment rights either in executing the search warrant or intentionally lying to establish probable cause. 

It speaks volumes that Trump has balked at seeking an adjudication of the legality of the Mar-a-Lago search either under Rule 41 or in a Fourth Amendment damages suit. Maybe he learned something from losing more than 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 presidential elections.  

Contrary to uninformed caterwauling by Trump and his echo chambers, he has been treated with kid gloves compared with President Richard Nixon. 

In February 1974, Nixon was named by a federal grand jury as an unindicted co-conspirator in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary. Subpoenas were issued for presidential tapes, including for a critical, allegedly incriminating, conversation on June 20, 1974. But the tape contained an 18 and a-half-minute gap, which chief of staff Alexander Haig attributed to an anonymous “sinister force.” 

Considering this history, it would have been prosecutorial malpractice to have issued a subpoena for Trump’s boxes of presidential papers in lieu of a search warrant — especially because of Trump’s notoriety for flushing presidential documents down the toilet.   

After resigning, Nixon remained vulnerable to prosecution until President Gerald Ford’s pardon on Sept. 8, 1974. But that did not end Nixon’s Watergate travails. In 1975, Nixon testified under oath for 11 hours before a federal grand jury, questioned by the special Watergate prosecution force. 

Trump’s signature fact-free and law-free defenses — witch hunts and a Democratic Gestapo — was recently rejected by a 3-0 panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Committee on Ways and Means v. Trump. The court sustained the constitutionality of the committee’s statutory right of access to Trump’s tax returns.  

Even if Trump’s treatment has been unique, so has been his frontal assault on the Constitution. He proclaimed in the manner of Napoleon’s self-coronation, “Then I have Article II, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” With that said, Trump routinely flouted the law. According to his national security advisor John Bolton, “The pattern [of Mr. Trump’s actions] looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life.” Like the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Nixon v Administrator of General Services, sustaining the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act expressly targeting former President Nixon, Trump constitutes a “legitimate class of one.” 

America fought a revolution to make the rule of law king, not to make a king the ruler of law. Trump is orchestrating a counterrevolution against that hallowed success. As Benjamin Franklin noted at the conclusion of the constitutional convention, the delegates gave us a Republic, but it is up to us to keep it.   

Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and is the author of “Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy.” 

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Blood tests can help predict outcome of head injuries

A portable blood test developed by medical device company Abbott can help predict how someone will recover from a traumatic brain injury by testing a patient as soon as possible. 

A study conducted on more than 1,600 patients revealed high values of certain protein biomarkers “have good to excellent prognostic value for predicting death and unfavorable outcome” among individuals who suffered a traumatic brain injury. Abbott says the research shows doctors testing for these brain proteins can get a better picture of how severe a head injury is and a timeline of recovery. 

However, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1), the predictors tested, were unable to estimate incomplete recovery at six months. 

Findings were published in The Lancet Neurology.

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Although GFAP and UCH-L1 are currently used to aid in determining whether patients should undergo computed tomography (CT) scans following a traumatic brain injury, little was known about their prognostic values for patient outcomes.

All individuals included in the study were at least 17 years old and had presented to U.S. trauma centers between 2014 and 2018. Upon evaluation, individuals received CT scans and had plasma samples taken within 24 hours. Individuals were followed up with after six months.

Of those with baseline and six-month data available, just over 7 percent died and around 14 percent had unfavorable outcomes based on the Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended Interview, which evaluates disability and recovery following brain injuries. 

Around 67 percent had an incomplete recovery at six months and 33 percent recovered fully.

Overall, GFAP levels could predict death at six months at a probability of 87 percent while UCH-L1 could do so at 89 percent. Both plasma samples predicted severe disability after six months at 86 percent.

“We believe this tool may encourage clinicians to be more aggressive in their decisions to begin or continue life-saving treatment,” said study author Geoffrey Manley of the University of California, San Francisco in a statement. 

“Modern trauma care can result in good outcomes in what we had once believed were non-survivable injuries.”

If used in clinical practice, the tests could confirm any need for immediate surgical interventions or guide conversations with family members. They could also be beneficial in mass casualty situations where medical providers may need to triage patients.

The majority of patients included in the study were male with an average age of 39.

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Here are the states high-earning Americans are moving to

America’s high wage earners — those whose tax returns show an income of $200,000 or more — are migrating primarily to states in the nation’s Sunbelt region.  

A recent analysis from the personal finance website SmartAsset shows the Sunbelt boasts six of the top 10 states with the largest influx of high-wage households.  

Florida and Texas, which do not have a state income tax, hold the top two spots. Florida earned No. 1 status despite losing more than 11,000 tax filers who reported earnings of at least $200,000 in 2020. The same held true in Texas, where more than 13,000 high earning households left the state.  

Florida’s net migration totaled 20,263 high-income filers, while Texas netted 5,356. 

Arizona, North Carolina and South Carolina rounded out the SmartAsset’s top five states with the highest net totals of wage earners added.  

Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., has the highest proportion of households earning $200,000 or more at 12.19 percent. West Virginia had the smallest. 

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The states losing the most high-wage tax filers are traditionally tax-heavy ones, according to the analysis. They include New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Virginia. 

But the bottom ten states are still home to a significantly higher percentage of high-income earners than the national average of around 7 percent. 

For the analysis, SmartAsset used IRS data from 2019-2020 to compare the influx and outflow of high-earning households in all 50 states and D.C. 

Separate pandemic era analyses show the migration pattern continuing as residents move out of cities and into the south and southwest. Opportunities created by remote work enable workers to move to areas of the country where the cost of living is far lower than the nation’s metros.  

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Congress should reconsider Austin’s request to fund ‘critical munitions’

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Senate appropriators shot down a Department of Defense (DOD) fiscal year 2023 budget request to create a $500 million Critical Munitions Acquisition Fund. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had argued that the fund would give the DOD flexibility to increase weapons production to assist Ukraine and to respond to any urgent needs arising from future crises. 

In response, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s report for FY 2023 stated that “the Critical Munitions Acquisition Fund is narrowly focused on procurement of small amounts of certain munitions to be decided in the year of execution. By design, this approach does not address the broader challenges of strategic investment and management of the DIB [defense industrial base] and the supply chain.”

Appropriators, and especially many of their staffers, long have been suspicious of any new fund that would afford the DOD “flexibility” without detailed congressional oversight. Their opposition harks back three decades, when in 1989 the Air Force informed Congress that it planned to apply $1 billion from so-called “M accounts” to correct problems with the B-1 bomber’s avionics systems. The Air Force request for funds from these accounts came as a surprise to many legislators who had not been aware of the size of these accounts. Indeed, some lawmakers were not even aware of their existence.

The M accounts held expired budget authority funds whose balances could be paid out as long as that authority had not yet expired. Since budget authority generally did not expire after one year, these accounts were able to hold billions of dollars, which then could be applied as add-ons to ongoing programs without the need for additional appropriations. In effect, these accounts enabled the DOD to increase funding for its programs without having to receive additional permission from the Congress.

Not surprisingly, Congress acted quickly to terminate the M accounts, which it viewed as nothing more than “slush funds” that enabled the DOD to expend money irresponsibly with no real legislative oversight. The Fiscal Year 1990 Defense Authorization Act ordered that all such accounts be closed by September 1993. Ever since, members of Congress — and especially the appropriators — have been chary of approving any new open-ended accounts or funds whose expenditures might evade legislative scrutiny. 

While the FY 2023 defense appropriations report referred to the need for a broader approach to revitalizing the defense industrial base, there can be little doubt that Secretary Austin’s use of the term “flexibility” was a red flag for appropriators who worried that the new fund would not be subject to the usual level of legislative oversight.

Legislators no doubt are correct that the Critical Munitions Acquisition Fund falls short of the need to address those “broader challenges of strategic investment and management” of the defense industrial base. Yet there is also much merit in the DOD proposal for a fund that would immediately spur the industrial base to produce munitions that either would be sent directly to Kyiv to meet urgent Ukrainian needs or would replace those already transferred to Ukraine. 

Given conditions on the battlefield, those needs could change far more quickly than the often cumbersome and frequently time-consuming process of obtaining legislative approval for DOD reprogramming requests would allow. Moreover, with the likelihood that the congressionally approved FY 2023 appropriation will exceed $800 billion, a $500 million fund simply does not constitute a significant sum relative to the benefits it could afford Ukraine.

There is a widespread consensus that the DOD planning, programming, budgeting and execution system is seriously outdated and in urgent need of reform. To that end, Congress has authorized the creation of a commission to propose changes to the system. One of those changes could involve recognizing that the system is simply too slow and inflexible to meet urgent demands that might arise from an unanticipated crisis or conflict such as the war in Ukraine. 

The commission will not report its findings and recommendations for some time, however, and in the meantime, the need for Washington to meet Kyiv’s crucial munitions requirements is unlikely to diminish. For that reason alone, Congress should reconsider and approve Austin’s request for a critical munitions fund. After all, it could terminate the fund in the future, as it once closed the M accounts nearly 30 years ago.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was under secretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy under secretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.

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Democrats hold edge in key state legislature generic ballots: poll

Democrats are holding an edge over Republicans on a generic ballot for the state legislature in three battleground states, according to a new poll.

A poll commissioned by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) and conducted by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling that was shared exclusively with The Hill shows that Democrats have an edge in state legislature generic ballots in Michigan, Colorado and Nevada.

The poll found that Democrats hold a 5-percentage lead over Republicans when respondents in Michigan are asked which candidate they would vote for in their district if the election for state legislature was held today.

Forty-eight percent of Michigan voters surveyed said they would vote for the Democratic candidate compared to 43 percent who said the Republican choice. Another 9 percent said they were unsure.

In Colorado, 48 percent of voters surveyed there said they would pick the Democratic candidate compared to 45 percent who said the Republican if the state legislature election was held today. 

And in Nevada, 46 percent said they would choose the Democrat while 43 percent said the Republican in a similar scenario.

The polling in Colorado and Nevada falls within their respective margins of error, meaning Democrats and Republicans are essentially tied in those states.

“This polling confirms that Democratic policies are broadly popular and the Republican agenda is out of step with a majority of voters,” DLCC President Jessica Post said in a statement. “As we’ve said from the beginning of the cycle, this midterm will be incredibly competitive for both Democratic and Republican-held legislatures.”

The recent polling could offer a boost of optimism for Democrats who are still expected to face several headwinds heading into November. The president has been mired in low approval ratings, inflation is still decades-high and there’s a historical precedent that the president’s party in power generally suffers some losses in the midterms.

But the picture for Democrats has changed in recent months as the party has seen a slew of positive developments. Democrats are close to passing a major reconciliation bill on climate, tax reform and health; a July jobs report outpaced economists’ expectations and recent inflation data has shown it’s started to cool down, among others.

In the Colorado survey, PPP polled 532 voters in the state between Aug. 3 and Aug. 4 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. In the Michigan survey, PPP polled 553 voters in the state between Aug. 3 and Aug. 4 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. In the Nevada survey, PPP polled 556 voters in the state between Aug. 3 and Aug. 4 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump pushes back on report FBI sought nuclear weapons

Former President Trump pushed back on reports that some of the documents the FBI sought at Mar-a-Lago on Monday included information related to nuclear weapons. 

Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday that the “nuclear weapons issue” is a “hoax,” as were other investigations into him. 

The Washington Post reported that sources familiar with the investigation confirmed the FBI was seeking documents containing information on nuclear weapons but did not say if any of those documents were recovered. 

Trump and his allies have denounced the FBI search at his Palm Beach, Fla., residence as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

Republicans have widely criticized the Justice Department (DOJ), calling for answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) vowed to launch an investigation if Republicans retake control of the House in the November midterm elections. 

The DOJ usually does not comment on active investigations, but Garland made a statement on Thursday, defending the integrity of those who work at the DOJ and FBI. and confirming that he had signed off on the search.

“The men and women at the FBI and Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants,” he said. “Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights.” 

Garland also said that the DOJ filed a motion to unseal the search warrant since Trump publicly revealed the warrant was executed and given the public’s attention to the search. Trump said late Thursday that his lawyers will not oppose the warrant’s release. 

The DOJ’s motion states that Trump’s lawyers received a list of the documents the FBI recovered. But Trump’s team has not released the list publicly.

Source: TEST FEED1