Greg Sargent/The Washington Post:
Youngkin’s disastrous night shows the right’s culture war has fizzled
But the GOP governor’s comeuppance isn’t just about the durability of abortion rights as a political winner for Democrats. It also shows that right-wing culture-warring on education — built around a “parents’ rights” agenda limiting school discussion of race and gender — has utterly lost its political potency, allowing Democrats to respond with their own affirmative liberal cultural agenda.
Strikingly, more than $5.5 million was spent on ads about education in the Virginia legislative contests, according to data provided by the tracking firm AdImpact. While it’s unclear what percentage focused on “parents’ rights,” some Republicans modeled their campaigns on the way Youngkin turned that issue into a 2021 victory — an upset that led many pundits to declare education a political loser for Democrats even in blue territory.
Amanda Marcotte/Salon:
"I'm so tired of these psychos": Moms for Liberty is now a toxic brand Last month, Salon reported on one town's fight over a right wing school takeover — Tuesday, the resistance won big
Last month, I published an investigative report about how Moms for Liberty, a group dedicated to rewiring American education toward the far right, had taken over the board of education in the Pennridge School District, about half an hour outside Philadelphia. Moms for Liberty, a heavily funded astroturf organization linked to GOP leadership, wasn't especially subtle in its strategies, pinpointing a handful of swing districts in purple states, like Virginia and Pennsylvania, and targeting school board elections, which are usually low turnout and easy to win. Once installed, Moms for Liberty members started banning books and Pride flags, as well as protesting that teachers were "grooming" kids with "smut," which usually meant either a history book or acclaimed, age-appropriate fiction. The idea was to create moral panics around sex and race that could tip national elections towards Republicans.
Well, it backfired.
As I reported, parents in the Pennridge district eager to fight back against right-wing radicals formed the Ridge Network and got the word out, arguing to voters that the group was degrading the quality of the public schools. This week, those efforts paid off: Democrats won all five of the open school board seats in the district, wresting control away from Moms for Liberty.
ICYMI, it also happened in Iowa. This from Bleeding Heartland was previously shared: “Progressives win, book banners lose many Iowa school board races.”
Tom Bonier/The New York Times:
American Elections Are About Abortion Now
Abortion rights won big on Tuesday night. In Ohio, a constitutional amendment enshrining protections for abortion rights was on the ballot, and in Virginia, control of both chambers of the state legislature was considered a tossup, and both parties made abortion rights the central issue of their campaigns. The pro-abortion-rights measure in Ohio passed by a wide margin. In Virginia, the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, made his proposal for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy the central argument for electing Republicans in the state legislature. Republicans failed to win back control in the Senate and lost their narrow majority in the House of Delegates as turnout surged to historically high levels in key swing districts.
Before this week’s elections, most of the attention of the political class and the public was focused on national polls showing Donald Trump holding a lead over President Biden in the 2024 presidential contest. But it is now clearer than ever that the backlash against the Dobbs decision — and voters’ general distaste for strictly limiting abortion access — could play a crucial role in winning Mr. Biden a second term. Certainly, there will be many other major issues at play in this election, including war and voters’ perceptions of the economy. But abortion could plausibly be the deciding factor next November.
Ron DeSantis says it's 'out of bounds' to attack candidates' kids — except for Hunter Biden
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he disagreed with Vivek Ramaswamy's reference to Nikki Haley's daughter.In an interview with Fox News, DeSantis said he disagreed with Vivek Ramaswamy bringing up former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s daughter in a discussion about TikTok during the presidential primary debate hosted by NBC News on Wednesday night. He cautioned against dragging family members into the political fray.
“I think the kids are out of bounds. I didn’t think that was an appropriate thing to do,” said DeSantis, who has three young children.
“I keep the kids out of it for sure,” he added of his own conduct.
But out on the campaign trail, the governor does not shy from making a punchline out of Hunter Biden, 53, joking about his history of addiction and embarrassing details of his personal life that have surfaced publicly.
While Hunter Biden is an adult, so is Haley’s daughter — albeit a few decades younger than the president's son. Both, however, are politicians’ children who are not in elected office.
Jacqueline Alemany/The Washington Post:
Momentum behind impeachment inquiry slows under new speaker
The inquiry stagnated during the 3-week fight to elect a new speaker. Now, James Comer has sent out new subpoenas as Speaker Mike Johnson strikes a more reserved tone.
Johnson, who told reporters that he has been “intellectually consistent” in cautioning against a rushed investigation during a news conference last week, has previously accused Biden of bribing or pressuring a foreign leader. During a Fox News appearance over the summer, Johnson accused Biden of wielding taxpayer resources to fire Ukraine’s top prosecutor to benefit his son’s business dealings — an allegation widely disputed by both U.S. and foreign officials. And in another interview on Fox News last week, Johnson said that “if, in fact, all the evidence leads to where we believe it will, that’s very likely impeachable offenses.”
But in this week’s private meeting with moderates, Johnson appeared to agree with Republican lawmakers who argued that since Biden’s polling numbers have been so weak, there is less of a political imperative to impeach him, according to Bacon and others who attended the meeting.
Oh? It was political?
Democratic Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois on X, via Threadreader:
It's hard to explain how dysfunctional the @HouseGOP is, and the degree to which their own internal divisions are superseding every normal function of government. But I'm going to try with a short story about this week in the house. Thread:1. First: We operate on a 9/30 fiscal year but the (McCarthy) led house couldn't agree on how to fund prior to. They tried to just say "cut everything by 30%". That didn't pass. So they said "let's just fund at current levels for 45 days". That cost McCarthy his job.2. For context, when Dems had the majority we got all our appropriations done by August 1 so the Senate could finalize and POTUS could sign. @HouseGOP still hasn't done that.@HouseGOP 3. Also, you may recall this summer the @HouseGOP threatened to default on US debt unless we agreed to future spending rules. A deal was struck that passed the House and was signed into law to do so. The 30% cut was not consistent with that law. (AKA, it was illegal)
Cliff Schecter:
A Wisconsin judge on Friday ordered the former chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to produce records related to her work advising the Republican Assembly speaker on whether to impeach a current justice.
Former Chief Justice Patience Roggensack was one of three former Supreme Court justices asked by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to give him advice on pursuing impeachment. Vos has floated impeachment against liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz based on how she rules on a pending redistricting lawsuit Democrats hope will result in new legislative electoral maps.
The liberal watchdog group American Oversight filed a lawsuit seeking records from Vos and the three former justices. Vos and two of the former justices, David Prosser and Jon Wilcox, turned over records. That included an email from Prosser to Vos advising against impeachment. Vos turned over more than 21,000 pages of documents last week, American Oversight attorney Ben Sparks said at a Friday hearing.
WISCONSIN ASSEMBLY DELAYS VOTE ON LIKELY VETO-BOUND $2B INCOME TAX CUT
Wilcox told The Associated Press he did not produce a report, but verbally told Vos impeachment was not warranted.
The only former justice who did not produce any records was Roggensack. She has not said what her advice was to Vos and he has refused to say what it was.
When American Oversight attempted to serve Roggensack with a subpoena at her home, an elderly man who answered the door said he did not know anyone by that name and closed the door, Sparks said in court while quoting a statement from the process server.
On Friday, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington issued an order giving Roggensack 30 days to produce any records she has.
"Wisconsin has had and continues to have a long and storied tradition on the responsibility of open government," Remington said.
All of the former justices have a responsibility to produce records they maintain related to their work "whether they understood it or not in accepting the invitation to opine on the question presented," he said.
Roggensack's attorney, Robert Shumaker, did not return a phone message or email seeking comment.
Vos originally said he was considering impeachment if Protasiewicz did not recuse herself from the redistricting case. She did not recuse. Vos did not move to impeach her, following the advice against impeachment from the former justices. But now he’s suggesting he may attempt to impeach her if she does not rule in favor of upholding the current Republican-drawn maps.
The Wisconsin Constitution reserves impeachment for "corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors."
EX-WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT JUSTICE FIGHTS SUBPOENA OVER PROTASIEWICZ IMPEACHMENT ADVICE
Republicans have argued Protasiewicz has pre-judged the case based on comments she made during the campaign calling the current maps "unfair" and "rigged."
Protasiewicz, in her decision not to recuse from the case, said that while stating her opinion about the maps, she never made a promise or pledge about how she would rule on the case.
The redistricting lawsuit, filed the day after Protasiewicz joined the court in August and flipped majority control to 4-3 for liberals, asks that all 132 state lawmakers be up for election next year in newly drawn districts.
The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate. Republicans adopted maps last year that were similar to the existing ones.
Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most gerrymandered nationally, with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote, according to an AP analysis.
The early weeks of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tenure are seeing a predictable outbreak of “moderate” Republicans saying they sure hope that the impeachment inquiry that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched against President Joe Biden will “go where the evidence goes” and rely on “an orderly and fair process.” Those quotes are from Reps. Don Bacon and Doug LaMalfa, respectively, who will provide invaluable cover for Johnson as he works to get the media to buy into his Very Smart Constitutional Lawyer persona. But a Washington Post article on the impeachment dynamics under Johnson contained maybe the most damning possible passage on Johnson’s approach.
But in this week’s private meeting with moderates, Johnson appeared to agree with Republican lawmakers who argued that since Biden’s polling numbers have been so weak, there is less of a political imperative to impeach him, according to Bacon and others who attended the meeting.
I’m sorry, but how is that a passing mention in a story largely focused on how Johnson “has taken a more reserved tone, both publicly and privately, urging members to conduct a thorough and fair investigation with no predetermined outcome”? If Johnson’s “more reserved tone” is based on feeling that it’s no longer politically important to impeach Biden, that’s not a sign that he’s prioritizing being “thorough and fair”; it’s a sign that he’s proceeding from an entirely partisan starting point!
Before he became speaker and decided that his play was looking like a serious guy by getting the media to ignore that his constitutional law work was anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ extremism, Johnson promoted House Oversight Chair James Comer’s baseless allegations against Biden. “The things that the evidence is leading us to, the allegations that are very serious and have been made in the mounting evidence stacking up to show is the causes that are listed right there in the Constitution,” he said in late September. “So we have no choice. Why are Democrats ignoring it purely for partisan political purposes?” Also in late September, he stood on the House floor and railed against the media for correctly observing that the impeachment inquiry “may be weakest in history” and was “the most predictable impeachment investigation in American history.” It goes on. “One thing that remains clear: The list of credible allegations that Joe Biden engaged in bribery schemes continues to grow,” he tweeted in early October. “The Constitution specifically lists bribery as a cause for impeachment. We can't have a President that is bought & paid for by foreign adversaries.”
Sure, Johnson gave lip service to following the evidence from time to time, but he regularly promoted Comer’s wildest allegations against Biden as truth, and presented impeachment as the logical and necessary outcome, the constitutional responsibility of the House for such corruption. And now the reporting shows that if, as speaker, he is backing off a little, it’s not just because he has decided it’s important to look like a statesman but also because he thinks impeachment is currently less important from a partisan standpoint, based on the polling.
This is who Mike Johnson is. The media needs to actually pay attention, rather than reporting such massively damning information as if it were a ho-hum scenario not worthy of extended comment.
Campaign ActionThe band is back together, and it is a glorious day as Markos and Kerry’s hot takes over the past year came true—again! Republicans continue to lose at the ballot box and we are here for it!
White House officials have confirmed that President Biden will be meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this month in an effort to ease tensions between the two countries.
Biden and Xi are scheduled to meet in San Francisco's Bay Area on Nov. 15, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
"President Biden will meet with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on November 15," the press secretary announced Friday. "The Leaders will discuss issues in the U.S.-PRC bilateral relationship, the continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication, and a range of regional and global issues."
Jean-Pierre continued, "Building on their last meeting in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, the Leaders will also discuss how the United States and the PRC can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community."
A senior House Republican leadership source says the House will likely hold a vote Tuesday on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Fox is told to expect a straight up or down vote on a privileged resolution to impeach Mayorkas, which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., introduced Thursday morning.
The source suggested it would be unlikely a motion to table or set the measure aside is introduced. Such a vote could serve as a fig leaf to protect members who make a lot of noise about impeaching Mayorkas but may be unwilling to vote on the record.
If that’s the case, Mayorkas could be impeached without a hearing or a committee markup.
That would automatically trigger a process that would compel the House to send articles of impeachment for Mayorkas and impeachment managers to the Senate.
That does not necessarily mean there would be a Senate trial. But the Democrat-controlled Senate would have to receive the articles of impeachment from the House.
Such a turn of events could be extraordinary considering how many Republicans spoke about "process." Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., prevented an effort this spring by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to impeach President Biden. The House extinguished the effort by dispatching the Boebert impeachment gambit of the president to committee.
McCarthy often spoke about handling impeachments "by the book." That involves depositions, hearings and a markup on the articles of impeachment themselves. None of that has happened with Mayorkas.
HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY GOP REPORT ACCUSES MAYORKAS OF CEDING BORDER CONTROL TO CARTELS
Notably, the House voted to table an effort last week to expel Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., largely because he had not received "due process." The House Ethics Committee had not finished a report on Santos nor held a public hearing. A report on Santos is due by Nov. 17.
But many lawmakers from both sides opposed expelling Santos out of concern for due process.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., spoke out on Fox about potentially expelling Santos because of "due process."
But now it’s possible the House could impeach Mayorkas without the usual parliamentary mechanics that come with that special congressional power.
That said, it’s possible the House could reject an effort to impeach Mayorkas. That could be an embarrassment for hardline Republicans who have talked about impeaching Mayorkas for months — yet possibly stumbled when an actual impeachment resolution went to the floor.
On Thursday, the Republican-led House decided that after having wasted weeks arguing about who should be their next speaker, they needed to take a nice long weekend. With eight days left to fund our government, the Republican Party still can’t get its act together long enough to pass anything.
Mere days before Veterans Day, while some House members used their time to commemorate U.S. veterans, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stood up and spoke for a very long time—and introduced articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
This is nothing new for Greene, who has authored about a half-dozen articles of impeachment against Biden and others in his administration. On Tuesday, instead of working toward a Republican consensus to keep the government open, Greene passed an amendment to have Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s salary reduced to $1.
Greene is not alone. Targeting Mayorkas has been a way for conservatives to pretend the Biden administration has failed to secure America’s borders. Xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment appear to be the only things resembling policy for Republicans. The logic of how dismantling the U.S. government’s ability to operate will help improve … its operation … remains a mystery.
Did the Republicans vote on anything else?
With a Republican shutdown looming, the GOP seems able to produce only political theater aimed at hampering the government’s ability to serve the American people. This week’s election results suggest the American people have noticed.
Campaign ActionThe band is back together, and it is a glorious day as Markos and Kerry’s hot takes over the past year came true—again! Republicans continue to lose at the ballot box and we are here for it!