Morning Digest: Flipping the Senate is within reach as three key race ratings shift toward Democrats

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

Race Ratings: As the battle for control of the Senate grows more competitive, Daily Kos Elections is moving a trio of contests in the Democrats’ direction, though all three Republican incumbents very much remain in the fight. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst’s race moves from Likely to Lean Republican, while Maine Sen. Susan Collins' and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis’ seats have gone from Lean Republican to Tossup.

With these changes, we now rate three Republican-held seats as Tossups (the two above plus Arizona) and one as Lean Democratic (Colorado). If Democrats can sweep these races and retake the White House, they'll win back control of the Senate even in the likely event that Alabama Sen. Doug Jones loses his bid for re-election.

Campaign Action

Iowa (Likely Republican to Lean Republican). At the start of the cycle, it wasn’t clear whether Joni Ernst would be a serious target, but of late, both parties have begun treating the Hawkeye State as a major battleground. Ernst’s allies at the NRSC and the Senate Leadership Fund have reserved a total of $15.2 million in ad time, while the DSCC and the Senate Majority PAC have booked $20.4 million to unseat her. Businesswoman Theresa Greenfield, who has the support of national Democrats in the June 2 primary, has also proven to be a strong fundraiser, though Ernst still had considerably more money to spend at the end of March.

Still, while Ernst is in for a tougher race than she may have anticipated even a few months ago, she remains the favorite thanks to Iowa’s swing to the right over the last few years. Though the Hawkeye State had been competitive turf for generations, Ernst won by a surprisingly lopsided 52-44 margin in 2014, and Donald Trump did even better there two years later. Iowa did shift back towards Democrats last cycle when Democrats unseated two Republican House incumbents, but Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds still won a full term 50-48 in a bad year for her party.

Maine (Lean Republican to Tossup): Susan Collins has pulled off lopsided wins during all three of her re-election contests, and she remained very popular in her home state of Maine as recently as a couple of years ago. However, the incumbent’s numbers took a dive after she provided the decisive vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, something that she seemed to acknowledge last summer.

We’ve only seen two polls this year, but they both showed Collins narrowly losing to state House Speaker Sara Gideon, who has the backing of national Democrats in the July primary and swamped Collins on the money front in the most recent quarter. Maine only narrowly backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Collins has a strong shot of winning a fifth term if Trump can come close again. But Collins, whose once-moderate veneer helped her win many Democratic votes in years past, is unused to having her fate tied to the top of the ticket and can no longer count on crossover support now that her extremism has been exposed.

North Carolina (Lean Republican to Tossup): Thom Tillis is another GOP incumbent who seemed to have the edge just a few months ago, but things have improved for Democrats since Cal Cunningham won his primary in early March. Cunningham decisively outraised Tillis over the following weeks, and multiple polls have shown Tillis trailing. North Carolina did back Trump 50-46, but if this swing state ends up in Joe Biden’s column this fall, Tillis will have a tough time hanging on.

Election Changes

Please bookmark our statewide 2020 primary calendar and our calendar of key downballot races, both of which we're updating continually as changes are finalized.

California: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an order directing that all California voters be sent a mail-in ballot for the November general election, though in-person voting will still remain an option. Leaders in the Democratic-run legislature plan to pass a bill that would do the same thing, but they had asked Newsom to issue this order so that election officials could begin making the necessary preparations immediately.

Delaware: Democratic Gov. John Carney has postponed Delaware's presidential primary a second time, from June 2 to July 7. The delay will give the state more time to send absentee ballots applications to all registered Democrats and Republicans who have not yet requested one, a move that Carney also just announced. Carney's order also postpones all school board elections, which previously were moved from May 12 to June 16, until July 21.

Louisiana: Voting rights advocates, including the NAACP, have filed a federal lawsuit asking that Louisiana's requirement that voters present an excuse in order to vote absentee be waived for all elections that take place during the coronavirus pandemic. The suit also seeks to waive the requirement that absentee voters obtain a witness' signature for their ballots. In addition, plaintiffs want the early voting period extended from seven days to 14.

Michigan: Michigan officials have accepted a federal judge's original plan for easing ballot access requirements for congressional and judicial candidates despite an appeals court ruling that overturned that plan. As a result, the filing deadline for such candidates was extended from April 21 to May 8, the number of signatures required was halved, and candidates were allowed to collect and file signatures electronically.

Minnesota: Democrats in the Minnesota House have given up on a plan to conduct the state's elections by mail after the Republican-run state Senate refused to consider it. Instead, both chambers passed a compromise bill that appropriates federal funds to promote absentee voting, help process an expected surge of mail ballots, and open more polling places to reduce crowding.

Senate

MI-Sen: Advertising Analytics reports that Republican John James has launched a new $800,000 buy that will last for two weeks. The commercial touts James' time in the Army and in business and does not mention Democratic incumbent Gary Peters.

House

IN-01: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus' BOLD PAC has spent about $150,000 on mailers supporting state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon in the June 2 Democratic primary.

Candelaria Reardon is one of several candidates competing to succeed retiring Rep. Pete Visclosky in this reliably blue seat in the northwestern corner of the state, and there's no clear frontrunner at this point. Attorney and environmental advocate Sabrina Haake, who has self-funded most of her campaign, ended March with a $237,000 to $161,000 cash-on-hand lead over Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, who considered challenging the incumbent before Visclosky decided not to seek re-election.

Candelaria Reardon wasn't far behind with $146,000 available, while 2018 Secretary of State nominee Jim Harper had $81,000 to spend. North Township Trustee Frank Mrvan, who has Visclosky's endorsement, had just $43,000 on-hand, while businesswoman Melissa Borom did not report raising anything.

NJ-03: Defending Main Street, a super PAC that backs establishment Republicans in primaries, has spent $100,000 on mailers boosting former Burlington County Freeholder Kate Gibbs and opposing wealthy businessman David Richter in the July GOP primary.

While Republicans reportedly recruited Gibbs to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, her fundraising has been very disappointing in this very expensive district. Gibbs outraised Richter $71,000 to $19,000 during the first quarter of 2020, but Richter self-funded another $100,000 and ended March with a large $462,000 to $112,000 cash-on-hand lead.

Kim hauled in $760,000 during this time and had a hefty $2.7 million available. However, despite the GOP's fundraising woes, this is still tough turf for Democrats: This seat, which includes the Philadelphia suburbs and central Jersey Shore, swung from 52-47 Obama to 51-45 Trump.

TX-03: Attorney Lulu Seikaly picked up an endorsement on Friday from Rep. Marc Veasey, who serves as a regional DCCC vice chair, in the July Democratic runoff to take on freshman GOP Rep. Van Taylor.

Morning Digest: Justin Amash’s presidential bid opens up potentially competitive Michigan House seat

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

MI-03: On Tuesday evening, Republican-turned-independent Rep. Justin Amash announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for president as a member of the Libertarian Party. Michigan doesn't allow candidates to run for president and for Congress at the same time, and Amash soon confirmed that he was giving up his seat in the Grand Rapids area. Amash, who left the GOP last year, also said that he'd be informing the House clerk that he's now a Libertarian, which would give the party its first-ever member of Congress.

The Libertarian Party is scheduled to award its presidential nomination in late May, so Amash will soon know if he'll be its standard bearer. However, he does have a backup option if delegates reject him: While Michigan's filing deadline for major party candidates is May 8, everyone else has until July 16 to turn in their paperwork.

Campaign Action

For now, though, we have an open seat race in an area that's been friendly to the GOP for a long time. Gerald Ford himself represented Grand Rapids for decades, and the current 3rd District went from 53-46 Romney to 52-42 Trump. However, Democrats may still have an opening if 2020 turns out to be a favorable year. 2018 GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Schuette took the seat by a very slim 48.6-48.2 margin while he was losing statewide 53-44, while GOP Senate nominee John James carried the district by a modest 51-47 that same year while he was going down 52-46.

Several candidates were already running against Amash, and while the deadline to run in the August primary isn't until next month, it's unlikely the field will expand. Congressional candidates need to turn in 1,200 valid signatures to make the ballot this year, and social distancing makes that task especially difficult. The main GOP candidates are Army veteran and wealthy businessman Peter Meijer and state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis, while attorney Hillary Scholten has the Democratic side to herself.

Amash's decision to leave Congress will mark the end of a 10-year career defined by fights with GOP leaders. Amash first ran for the House in 2010 as a first-term state representative who had already established a reputation for libertarian principles: Notably, Amash was the only state lawmaker to oppose 59 different bills, and he posted explanations for each negative vote on his Facebook page. Amash was one of several Republicans to campaign to succeed retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers, and he earned the support of the anti-tax Club for Growth and local conservative powerplayers Dick and Betsy DeVos. Amash won the primary 40-26, and he had no trouble in November.

Amash brought to D.C. his habit of voting no on any bills that didn't pass his personal purity test, as well as a reputation for being difficult to work with. In late 2012, Amash was one of three GOP House members who were removed from their committees for, as one unnamed member put it, being "the most egregious a—holes" in the caucus. Amash refused to vote for John Boehner in the following year's speakership election, and he opposed him again two years later. Amash had more success with the GOP's emerging tea party wing, though, and he was one of the founding members of the nihilist House Freedom Caucus.

Amash's establishment enemies backed wealthy businessman Brian Ellis in the 2014 primary in what turned into an expensive and nasty race. Ellis attempted to portray Amash as weak on abortion issues and even labeled Amash, who is of Palestinian and Syrian descent, as "Al Qaeda's best friend in Congress," while the Club for Growth spent heavily to defend the incumbent. Amash won 57-43, though, and he was never again seriously threatened.

Amash's final break with the GOP came from his frustration with Donald Trump. Amash was the rare Republican who never fell into line with the administration, and he openly started musing about a third-party or independent presidential bid in March of last year.

Two months later, Amash took to social media and wrote that, after reading the Mueller Report he believed that Trump "has engaged in impeachable conduct." That attracted a typically belligerent response from Trump, and a number of candidates soon entered the GOP primary against Amash as his old allies almost all abandoned him. Amash announced on July 4 that he was leaving the GOP to become an independent, and he voted to impeach Trump at the end of last year.

Election Changes

Please bookmark our statewide 2020 primary calendar and our calendar of key downballot races, both of which we're updating continually as changes are finalized.

California: The Board of Supervisors in Los Angeles County, which is the largest county in the nation, has voted to mail a ballot to every voter for the November general election. The county is home to more than 10 million people and has more than 5.5 million registered voters. While voting by mail is very popular in California, it's been less so in Los Angeles: 45% of L.A. voters cast ballots by mail in 2018, compared to 72% in the rest of the state.

New York: Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has sued the New York State Board of Elections, asking that New York's June 23 Democratic primary for president be reinstated. Earlier this week, the board canceled the presidential primary (but downballot primaries remain scheduled that day).

Rhode Island: Democratic Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea says every voter will be sent an absentee ballot application for Rhode Island's June 2 presidential primary. The effort does not appear to apply to the state's downballot primaries, which will not take place until Sept. 8.

South Carolina: Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has postponed a number of local elections that were set to take place on May 5 and May 12. New dates have not yet been set.

Texas: A group of Texas voters, supported by the National Redistricting Foundation, have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the state's practice of allowing all voters 65 or older to cast absentee ballots without an excuse while requiring an excuse for anyone younger violates the Constitution. Specifically, the suit charges that the law in question violates the 26th Amendment, which guarantees that the right to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age." Six other conservative states have similar provisions in place, all but one of which is also located in the South.

Two other cases on the issue of Texas' excuse requirement are still pending. In one, filed in state court, a judge ruled that all voters can cite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic to request an absentee ballot, though Republicans have said they will appeal. A second similar case in federal court awaits a ruling.

Separately, commissioners in Harris County have allocated $12 million in new election funds, which would allow the county to mail ballots to every voter for the November general election. Harris is home to Houston and is the largest county in the state, with more than 2.3 million registered voters.

Senate

CO-Sen: On Tuesday, Denver District Court Judge Christopher Baumann ruled against placing climate activist Diana Bray in on the June Democratic primary ballot. Bray had only turned in just over 2,700 of the necessary 10,500 signatures, and Baumann argued that she had not demonstrated a "significant modicum of support" from the state's voters.

KS-Sen: Rep. Roger Marshall's allies at Keep Kansas Great PAC recently ran a spot against former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach ahead of the August GOP primary, and Advertising Analytics reports that the size of the buy was at least $35,000.

NC-Sen, NC-Gov: SurveyUSA is out with a poll for WRAL-TV that has some good news for Team Blue. Democrat Cal Cunningham posts a small 41-39 lead over GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, while Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper leads Republican Dan Forest by a massive 57-30. This sample also shows Joe Biden leading Donald Trump 50-45.

April polls have consistently shown Cooper, who has received strong marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, leading Forest by double digits, but there's less agreement on the state of the Senate race. The conservative Civitas Institute released numbers two weeks ago from the GOP firm Harper Polling that showed Tillis ahead 38-34, while the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found Cunningham ahead 47-40 around that same time.

Senate: On Tuesday, the DSCC announced its first wave of TV and digital ad reservations for the fall. The Democratic group's initial bookings consists of $30.6 million in four GOP-held Senate seats:

Arizona (Martha McSally): $6.4 Million Iowa (Joni Ernst): $7.3 Million Montana (Steve Daines): $5.2 Million North Carolina (Thom Tillis): $11.7 Million

The DSCC's reservations come weeks after its allies at Senate Majority PAC, as well as the GOP organizations NRSC and Senate Leadership Fund, made their own first wave of bookings.

All four groups made their largest reservations in North Carolina, a race that could very well decide control of the U.S. Senate in 2020. What's more surprising, though, is that all four organizations also booked millions for Iowa, which has long looked like a reach target for Democrats. The state swung hard to the right in 2014 and 2016, and while Democrats did considerably better last cycle, GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds still won a close contest for a full term.

We haven't seen a single poll of the Senate race since December, so we don't have a good sense for how vulnerable incumbent Joni Ernst is. However, this quartet of well-funded groups is at least acting like this race is very much in play.

House

CA-25: Democrat Christy Smith is out with what Politico describes as her "closing TV spot" ahead of the May 12 special election. The narrator goes after Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis and argues that Republican Mike Garcia "attacks anyone who doesn't agree with Trump." The commercial then shows a clip of Garcia saying that "everyone should have to figure out how to fend for themselves." The rest of the spot praises Smith's work during the pandemic.

GA-09: State Rep. Matt Gurtler picked up an endorsement this week from the radical anti-tax Club for Growth ahead of the crowded June GOP primary for this safely red seat. Gurtler has spent his two terms in the legislature fighting with party leaders, which makes him an ideal candidate for the Club.

IA-04: State Sen. Randy Feenstra is out with a poll from American Viewpoint that shows him trailing white supremacist Rep. Steve King by a modest 41-34 in the June 2 GOP primary; another 8% opt for another candidate. While Feenstra is down, the memo says that this is a big shift in his favor from late January, when a previously-unreleased poll found King up 53-22. We haven't seen any other surveys of the contest for this rural western Iowa seat all year.

Feenstra is using his huge financial edge over King to air a spot contrasting the two candidates. The narrator declares, "Steve King couldn't protect our farmers, and couldn't defend President Trump from impeachment." He continues, "King lost his congressional committees, can't do his job, can't protect us." The rest of the commercial praises Feenstra as an effective and pro-Trump conservative.  

Election Result Recaps

MD-07: The almost all-mail general election for the final months of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings' term took place on Tuesday, and former Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume won 73-27 in a seat that Hillary Clinton carried 76-20. Mfume represented a previous version of this Baltimore-based seat from 1987 until he resigned in 1996 to lead the NAACP. However, former Rep. Rick Nolan still holds the record for the longest gap in congressional service: The Minnesota Democrat retired in 1981 and returned 32 years later in 2013.

Mfume does have one more contest in his near future, but it doesn't look very competitive. The primary for the full two-year term is on June 2, and Mfume faces former state party chair Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, who is Elijah Cummings' widow, state Sen. Jill Carter, and Del. Jay Jalisi. This group faced off in the February special election primary, which ended with Mfume decisively defeating Rockeymoore Cummings 43-17; Carter and Jalisi took 16% and 2%, respectively.

P.S. In a tweet encouraging people to vote on Tuesday, Rockeymoore Cummings wrote, "A lot of people have asked me if you can write my name in. The answer is yes." Only about 1% of voters ended up writing in another candidate's name, though, and it's not clear how many of them selected Rockeymoore Cummings.

Ohio: After an abrupt cancellation, Ohio's primaries, originally scheduled for March 17, took place on Tuesday. The election took place almost entirely by mail, and only voters with disabilities or those who lacked a home address were allowed to vote in person. Ballots will still be accepted through May 8 as long as they were postmarked by Monday, so the margin may shift in some races.

OH-01: Former healthcare executive Kate Schroder defeated retired Air Force pilot Nikki Foster by a decisive 68-32 margin in the Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Steve Chabot. This seat in the Cincinnati area was heavily gerrymandered to keep Chabot from losing again after he had lost re-election in a bluer previous version of this district in 2008 (Chabot returned two years later). However, Donald Trump only carried the current 1st District by a modest 51-45 margin, and Chabot himself won an expensive re-election campaign 51-47 in 2018.

Chabot's campaign was also thrown into turmoil last summer when the FEC sent a letter asking why the congressman's first-quarter fundraising report was belatedly amended to show $124,000 in receipts that hadn't previously been accounted for. From there, a bizarre series of events unfolded.

First, Chabot's longtime consultant, Jamie Schwartz, allegedly disappeared after he shuttered his firm, called the Fountain Square Group. Then Schwartz's father, Jim Schwartz, told reporters that despite appearing as Chabot's treasurer on his FEC filings for many years, he had in fact never served in that capacity. Chabot's team was certainly bewildered, because it issued a statement saying, "As far as the campaign was aware, James Schwartz, Sr. has been the treasurer since 2011." Evidently there's a whole lot the campaign wasn't aware of.

The elder Schwartz also claimed of his son, "I couldn't tell you where he's at" because "he's doing a lot of running around right now." Well, apparently, he'd run right into the arms of the feds. In December, local news station Fox19 reported that Jamie Schwartz had turned himself in to the U.S. Attorney's office, which, Fox19 said, has been investigating the matter "for a while."

Adding to the weirdness, it turned out that Chabot had paid Schwartz's now-defunct consultancy $57,000 in July and August for "unknown" purposes. Yes, that's literally the word Chabot's third-quarter FEC report used to describe payments to the Fountain Square Group no fewer than five times. (Remember how we were saying the campaign seems to miss quite a bit?)

We still don't know what those payments were for, or what the deal was with the original $124,000 in mystery money that triggered this whole saga. Chabot himself has refused to offer any details, insisting only that he's been the victim of an unspecified "financial crime." There haven't been any public developments since December, but until there's a resolution, this story always has the potential to resurface at exactly the wrong time for Chabot.

OH-03: Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty won renomination in this safely blue Columbus seat by defeating Morgan Harper, a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau adviser, 68-32.

Harper, who is 36 and a first-time candidate, had contrasted herself against Beatty, who is 69 and has held elected office for two decades, by calling for generational change. However, while Harper raised a credible amount of money, she was always at a big disadvantage against the well-funded incumbent. Beatty also had considerably more cash left to use than Harper when the race was unexpectedly extended, and the incumbent kept up her spending advantage over the final weeks.

OH State House, Where Are They Now?: Former GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt, who lost renomination in a 2012 upset against now-Rep. Brad Wenstrup, looks to be on-track to return to her old stomping grounds in the Ohio state House.

Schmidt ended Tuesday evening with a 44-42 lead―a margin of 287 votes―in the GOP primary for House District 65, which is based in Clermont County to the east of Cincinnati. There are close to 3,000 absentee ballots left to tally countywide (HD-65 makes up just over 60% of the county), so it may be a little while before we have a resolution. This seat backed Donald Trump 66-29, so the GOP nominee should have little trouble in November.

Meet The Woman Challenging Nancy Pelosi Who May Just Take Her Seat

By David Kamioner | February 13, 2020

Running and beating Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California may seem like an impossible task, a David versus Goliath mission. But the GOP sports a 34 year old entrepreneur that has the right stuff for the job.

DeAnna Lorraine was born and raised in California and went to Cal State at Chico, where she studied marketing and organizational communications.

For the last ten years she has owned her own personal counseling firm and has had a thorough private sector education in the free market and the challenges facing small businesses everywhere. Her particular job has also given her a unique perspective on the current status of the American family. That’s why her first priority is making sure government does all it can, within common sense limits, to “restore the family unit.”

Lorraine comments, “Even though I’m running as a Republican, so many of the issues we are dealing with cross political lines and affect all Americans – like rising homelessness, broken families, and fatherless homes. Our country is in a crisis of broken families and fatherless homes right now and we need to restore these crucial elements, because strong families create a strong America.”

And of her Goliath-like opponent? Well, DeAnna Lorraine is not reticent.

“Pelosi has been at the head of disastrous federal policies that have done a great deal to result in the continuing destruction of the city of San Francisco….Her priorities are all wrong. While we here in the 12th district deal with the problems of homelessness and broken families that are a product of her failed policies, she focuses on a doomed impeachment. In fact, last year her office sent out 380 press releases. Not one dealt with the ongoing economic crises here in her own backyard.”

Lorraine comments that, “Pelosi has engaged in a downright betrayal of Americans and the Constitution.” The challenger also says that stopping the scourge of illegal immigration is one of her top tasks, noting that “violent illegal immigrants have taken lives in this state and are a tremendous burden on the taxpayers of California. We’ve got to do better in protecting our families from this problem.”

Those who discount Lorraine’s chances, taking into account her climb is certainly uphill, forget Agincourt, the Battle of Britain, and Valley Forge.

Sometimes the goods guys, even though serious underdogs, can win the battle. Her campaign website is www.DeAnnaForCongress.com.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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The post Meet The Woman Challenging Nancy Pelosi Who May Just Take Her Seat appeared first on The Political Insider.

Bernie Sanders Thrives On Young Voters Not Educated On The History And Consequences Of Socialism

All of you young people need to remember that when you vote for people who want to give what we have away, loan forgiveness, Medicare for All, increased welfare, open borders, etc., all come at a price for someone.

Sooner or later, YOU are the ones who will have to pay for it all. Congress and the President cannot give anything away without first taking it from someone else. That someone else is YOU. Think about the things you are voting for and the costs.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is looking for young voters who haven’t been taught the history and consequences of socialism. If they think forgiving their school loan debt will improve their financial situation, wait until retirement.

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Be very scared of people who cannot tell you how they are going to pay for something and if they say tax the rich listen to those of us who know. The rich will leave. There are plenty of Caribbean islands willing to take every one of our rich people and not tax them at all. You only need to look to states like NY and CA to understand the problems with many of these programs.

Many billionaires in NY have moved their residency to places like FL. Also, providing illegals with driver’s license has screwed hundreds of thousands of NY residents because now the Federal Gov’t, and rightfully so, have said they will no longer accept the NY state driver’s license and other things like global entry. This stuff has real impacts – like 30,000 truckers no longer being able to speed through the US border in Canada.

Free SUNY tuition has made those schools impossible to get into for anyone who wanted an affordable education but had slightly more than the amount you need for free education. Every day, working-class people are being screwed over. Look at the homeless problem in CA. Bernie doesn’t have any solutions for any of this stuff that will work.

MORE NEWS: Warren Describes Pence As A ‘Dog’ During New Hampshire Campaign Rally

We now live in a ‘Post-Democrat Party Era.’ Perhaps their voters may not realize this yet, but the outside world has seen their demise openly on display this week.

  • Iowa Caucus chaos;
  • Pres. Trump acquittal;
  • Rep. Nancy Pelosi temper tantrum;
  • Michael Bloomberg buying the DNC to change his Nevada rules;
  • Expulsion of CIA insiders from the National Security Council;
  • Democrat House members who refused to stand for Tuskegee airman;
  • Mean-spirited Democrats who refused to clap for a grammar school girl;
  • 20 to 30% of Trump rallies are made up of registered Democrats;
  • Trump raises $100 million war chest during impeachment,
  • Gallup now polls Trump higher than Obama, etc.

This is a complete collapse of the Democrat Party. The DNC’s (and their corporate handlers) only option now is to take over the nomination regardless if it heaps great contempt upon the Democrat voters.

The DNC has already said they do not want Bernie Sanders, but they allowed him to run on their party platform. Bernie is pulling the wool over some, but I hope the masses will realize there is no such thing as a free lunch. His plan will raise taxes to an ungodly amount. Is that free?

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Here’s something that I have been wondering. If America is so broken, how come, Bernie, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and the others didn’t fix it while they were already in office? How come they can’t fix America unless they are elected President?

Name one thing Bernie has done during his time in office, because I can name at least 10 Trump promised to deliver on and did in just three years.

Take a long serious look at these Democratic politicians, whom many have been in politics for a long time, and ask yourselves these questions. What contributions have they made that improved the lives of Americans, what have they done with their time in serving the American people, and is one of them capable of doing half of what Pres. Trump has already done in improving our lives and serving the American people.

It’s only fair that the people with the least life experience, inherit the mess they voted for. The sad thing is, Sanders won’t be around to answer for the mess he’s left them with.

What Others Are Reading At WayneDupree.com

 

The post Bernie Sanders Thrives On Young Voters Not Educated On The History And Consequences Of Socialism appeared first on The Political Insider.

Schiff Ends Impeachment Trial Arguments By Bizarrely Saying Trump Could Sell Alaska To Russia

By PoliZette Staff | February 4, 2020

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) made his closing statements in Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Monday, and things took an odd turn when he claimed the president might end up selling Alaska to Russia if he is not impeached.

Schiff argued that if non-criminal acts are not impeachable, Trump would be able to sell off U.S. states to foreign powers, according to The Blaze.

The California Democrat slammed the argument that only criminal actions that meet the constitutional standards of “high crimes and misdemeanors” are impeachable, saying that if this were the case, “a whole range of utterly unacceptable conduct in a president would now beyond reach.”

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“Trump could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election, or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and let Jared Kushner run the country, delegating to him the decision whether to go to war,” Schiff said. “Because those things are not necessarily criminal, this argument would allow that he could not be impeached for such abuses of power.”

This of course is not the first time that Schiff has tried to use a fictional narrative to take Trump down. Last year, Schiff created his own “parody” version of Trump’s infamous phone call with the Ukrainian president that he read out during a committee hearing, literally making up words that were said instead of truthfully reading out the transcript.

Schiff wasn’t the only Democrat to make odd arguments on Monday. Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) stated that only guilty people refuse to cooperate with investigations against them, which means that Trump must be guilty.

“Once he got caught, President Trump engaged in categorical and indiscriminate obstruction of any investigation into his wrongdoing,” Demings said. “He ordered every government agency and every official to defy the House’s impeachment inquiry. And he did so for a simple reason: To conceal evidence of his wrongdoing from Congress and the American people.”

“The president’s obstruction was unlawful and unprecedented, but it also confirmed his guilt,” she added. “Innocent people don’t try to hide every document and witness especially those that would clear them. That’s what guilty people do. That’s what guilty people do. Innocent people do everything they can to clear their name and provide evidence that shows that they are innocent.”

Someone should remind Demings that we have a phrase called “innocent until proven guilty” in this country that is a staple of our legal system. The burden is on the prosecution to prove guilt, not on the defendant to prove innocence.

RELATED: Trump Easily Wins Iowa, Twitter Roasts Democrats for Disastrous Night

Schiff and his fellow Democrats failed to prove that Trump is guilty, and they can’t stand the fact that their efforts to impeach him are dead in the water. They can hurl as many outlandish accusations at Trump as they want to, but they are only making themselves look bad at this point. Democrats have wasted the time and taxpayer money, and most Americans see right through them.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Kansas City Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes Pays Bill For Everyone In Restaurant

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Chilling Footage Emerges of Kobe Bryant’s Helicopter Flying Erratically Before Crash

By PopZette Staff | January 28, 2020

Chilling video footage has emerged showing Kobe Bryant’s helicopter circling the skies of Glendale, California “aggressively” minutes before it crashed, killing the 41 year-old NBA legend and eight others.

The video was shared to Twitter by a user with the handle @theironlydreams, who spotted the helicopter flying above their house and immediately started filming.

“I try and video /photograph all the weird stuff happening above my house in Glendale, CA,” the user wrote. “Unfortunately this morning I didn’t realize I was filming the helicopter Kobe Bryant, his daughter and others were in 31 minutes before they crashed.”

RELATED: Actress Evan Rachel Wood Gets Major Backlash For Calling Kobe Bryant A ‘Rapist’ After His Death

The Twitter user later added that the “pilot was performing a very aggressive circling maneuver, that’s why I went outside to Film because it was so loud. I observed 1 or 2 circles before filming and he was even lower and closer to my house, engine maxed.”

This comes after veteran pilot Robert Ditchey told USA Today that the helicopter crash, which also killed Bryant’s 13 year-old daughter Gianna, “was totally avoidable.”

“And on the part of some people I can go as far as to say irresponsible,” Ditchey said. “Here’s one of the most important people in the world who comes to a tragic end like this and you say, ‘Why? What the hell happened?'”

The weather was so foggy in Southern California on the morning of the crash that the Los Angeles Police Department had grounded all of their helicopters due to safety concerns, according to Daily Mail. Despite this, Bryant’s helicopter took off from Santa Ana in Orange County just after 9am to take him to a basketball game that his daughter was set to play in.

Ditchey wondered why anyone would get on a helicopter in these kind of “very scary conditions.”

“The weather is not good enough for the police to fly,” Ditchey said. “Why should Kobe do it?”

The experienced pilot went on to explain that the helicopter likely crashed because of the decreased visibility that stemmed from the fog in Glendale.

RELATED: My Take: Kobe Bryant Death

“He’s down only 100 feet or so above the ground,” he continued. “In that area of the San Fernando Valley you have mountains on either side of you … and the clouds have obscured them, and you don’t have that much room to maneuver.”

Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that this tragedy could have been prevented had more precautions been taken. We can only hope that this devastating tragedy causes people to think twice before boarding helicopters in questionable weather conditions going forward.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
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‘Space Force’ debuts new uniforms, Graham’s 2020 opponent, and more you might have missed this week

Yikes, where does the time go? How is it Sunday already? The impeachment trial has dominated the news cycle and our front page, but our staff also picked some other stories that might have flown under the radar but are definitely worth reading.

Without further ado, here are our staff picks.

Trump's 'Space Force' debuts some new uniforms. There's only one problem with them…

By. David Nir

The “United States Space Force,” a particularly bizarre Trump fever dream given life to feed the black hole of his ego, released their first uniforms to the public on Friday evening. Get a load of these beauts:

Democrats across the country seek to make California's mistake, destroying careers of freelancers

By. kos

It’s not an either-or situation. We can help workers truly exploited by the gig economy, while letting people who want to freelance continue to ply their professional wares. That’s where the focus should be, not on copying a flawed and dangerous California law.

Group of parents deported without their kids by Trump admin return to U.S. following court ruling

By. Gabe Ortiz

Their trauma also manifested in other ways, a medical director said according to the report. “Physical symptoms felt by separated children are manifestations of their psychological pain. You get a lot of ‘my chest hurts,’ even though everything is fine [medically]. Children describe symptoms, ‘Every heartbeat hurts,’ ‘I can’t feel my heart,’ of emotional pain.”

Trump administration reportedly moving ahead with plan that could destroy Medicaid in red states

By, Joan McCarter

In a joint letter to HHS, patient advocacy groups addressed the threat to the health of millions. "The block grant will include vulnerable eligibility groups such as children and people with disabilities and requests unprecedented changes that could make it harder for patients to get the treatments and services that they need," they wrote.

Lindsey Graham's 2020 opponent releases impeachment statement using Lindsey Graham's own exact quote

By. Walter Einenkel 

As one of the big proponents of impeaching then President Bill Clinton, back in 1998, Sen. Graham has come under fire over the past year for how starkly contradictory his public statements today when compared to those from 1998. Harrison justifiably has decided to use Graham’s words against him.

That’s it for this Sunday night, folks! But tell us in the comments: What stories did you read this week that stuck with you? Anything that you think flew so under the radar that we might have missed? Looking forward to chatting with y’all below! 

Schiff Guns For Feinstein Seat

By David Kamioner | January 24, 2020

Do you find Adam Schiff, Dem of California, even more supercilious than you did when he ran the House Intel Committee’s impeachment hearing? Is he lying with greater confidence and still getting the facts wrong during the scant moments when he isn’t intentionally fabricating evidence?

That’s because, like Doug Collins of Georgia on the GOP side during the House hearings, Schiff is auditioning for a Senate race. He’s thinking Dem Senator Diane Feinstein of California, who is 86 now and would be 90 in 2024, is going to retire and not make the 2024 race. That would leave it open for Schiff.

RELATED: States Speak Up Asking Senate to Throw Out Impeachment

His lack of candor would integrate well in ignoring the state’s dark ages public health standards. His intolerance works with their PC culture and his likely soft socialist economic ideas will mesh nicely with their soon-to-be Venezuela fiscal status.

But he will not be alone in chasing that poisoned chalice.

CA Bolshie Governor Gavin Newsom and his radical leftist Attorney Xavier Becerra are also said to be eyeing the seat. And why not?

Newsom is a Ken doll long on narcissism and short on ideas, perfect for a state where pectoral muscle measurements are generally greater than IQ.

Becerra is a Latin and thus, given the blatant racism at the core of the state and national Dem party, will have a leg up based only on his ethnic heritage.

A primary race between those three would be a race to the bottom of an ideological abyss. They would try to outpromise each other with free goodies for Californians and, as the president would be leaving office, would run on an end to the horror of Trumpism and a bright classic red future with one of their hands at a senatorial tiller.

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However, as we’re seeing now in Iowa, it will also quickly degenerate into a slagging match.

Given the internal Dem animosity between black and Jewish voters, Becerra would use his minority bona fides to attack Schiff on that front. Newsom would claim he is the only candidate with governing experience, if you count reducing his state to an open sewer as governing.

Schiff will claim to be the man who nobly tried to oust Trump. He will gloss over his failure in that regard.

One of them will win the primary and be elected to the Senate in Dem California.

Schiff is making his move on that right now.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
President Trump Wins His First Impeachment Trial Victory as Senate Votes 53 to 47
Tim Tebow Officially Tied the Knot and Their Wedding Photos Are Stunning
Trump Keeps His Promise, Makes Mexico Pay for U.S. Border Security

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