House Democrats are making an official effort to pack four additional associate justices onto the Supreme Court, expanding the total number from 9 to 13.
Such a move would presumably give a liberal tilt to the court by a 7-6 margin.
Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA), who sponsored the bill originally introduced in April of 2021, held a press conference with several other Democrat co-sponsors on Monday.
Johnson channeled President Biden’s messaging by describing the Supreme Court as “ultra right-wing” and claiming it is “at crisis with itself and with our democracy.”
Or, in English, he means “The Court didn’t do what we wanted.”
The Georgia lawmaker, who once famously asked during a House Armed Services Committee hearing if the island of Guam might capsize if too many people were on it, added that “basic freedoms are under assault” due to the current makeup of the Supreme Court.
Court packing is actually super unpopular so let’s hope Pelosi makes her members vote on this.https://t.co/e6iOxWz6Gc
Other House Democrats at the press conference pushing for legislation to pack the Supreme Court included Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Andy Levin (MI), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Mondaire Jones (NY), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), Mark Takano (CA), and Jan Schakowsky (IL).
Tlaib unleashed, calling the six conservative justices “unelected” (because the other three must have been elected) and claiming they are “literally telling women they have no control over their bodies.” (They are not literally saying any such thing.)
Rep. @RashidaTlaib: “We’re going to stand here with the folks that […] believe in what we’re trying to do, which is expand the court. […] Right now, six unhinged, unelected Supreme Court Justice[s] [are] literally telling women they have no control over their bodies.” pic.twitter.com/8H0EoZTlHY
Tlaib has denounced pro-lifers at rallies held outside the Supreme Court before, once telling those who don’t approve of abortion they “shouldn’t even want to have sex with me.”
.@RashidaTlaib at today’s abortion rally: “Yo yo, you know what, you’re so freakin’ obsessed with what I decide to do with my body, maybe you shouldn’t even want to have sex with me!”
Adds that pro-life pols are “commercializing” women’s bodies to make them “less than.” pic.twitter.com/yTt10nNvdY
Jones, one of the original co-sponsors of the bill, tried his hand at a Jedi mind trick, claiming the GOP had actually packed the Supreme Court as he touted the bill designed to actually pack the Supreme Court.
“The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” he told reporters. “That’s how they got this far-right 6-3 majority in the first place.”
Jones’ main beef appears to be an inability to get gun control legislation passed, something he referenced last month when threatening to do everything Democrats could to force it through.
“If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand it,” Jones seethed. “And we will not rest until we have taken weapons of war out of circulation and our communities each and every day.”
Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY):
“You will not stop us from passing [gun control]. If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand. We will not rest until we’ve taken weapons of war out of our communities.” pic.twitter.com/0x3t1aJXBn
Currently, Johnson’s bill to pack the Supreme Court has 58 co-sponsors in the House but would likely die in the Senate where it would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.
Johnson made his case for urgency.
“We don’t have a generation to wait to reform the court,” he warned.
While falsely claiming the U.S. population has grown by “800%” since 1989, Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar says it’s just “common sense” to pack the Supreme Court with far-left activist judges. pic.twitter.com/U0aEiOImLx
Johnson and his House colleagues have made it clear they will look at every opportunity to tilt the Supreme Court back in their favor.
Aside from simply packing the court with four justices which would magically give liberals a 7-6 advantage, Johnson, the chairman of the House Judiciary courts subcommittee, held a meeting that “discusses Congress’s impeachment authority” as a means to regulate “the conduct of Supreme Court justices.”
The aim of that meeting was to discuss the possibility of impeaching Clarence Thomas, the most conservative Justice currently serving on the Supreme Court.
A recent poll shows overwhelming opposition to packing the Supreme Court – 65% of respondents in a recent poll were opposed to the idea and only 26% were in favor.
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Former President Donald Trump will head to Alaska on July 9 to headline a campaign rally that Saturday afternoon for former Alaska Gov. and congressional candidate Sarah Palin, current Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka.
Tshibaka is running against incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski, who made Trump’s target list when she joined Democrats in voting to convict him in his impeachment trial over the Capitol riot.
President Trump is having a rally in Anchorage, Alaska, on July 9th.
He’s serious about defeating Lisa Murkowski & I’m loving every second of this.
Palin and a whopping 48 other candidates were in the original running for Alaska’s lone House seat, which was left vacant by the death in March of Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who held the seat for 49 years.
Palin, as a former Governor, has of course already won a statewide election in Alaska, and has the star power and name recognition of having been the Republican Party’s candidate for Vice President in 2008.
The top four finishers from the special primary election will now go on to the special election on August 16. The winner will serve out the rest of Young’s term.
Murkowski has accused the Trump-endorsed Tshibaka of being a “rubber-stamp Republican,” and seemingly does not regret her impeachment vote. She said of Tshibaka:
“I may be the last man standing. I may not be reelected. It may be that Alaskans say, ‘Nope, we want to go with an absolute, down-the-line, always, always, 100-percent, never-question, rubber-stamp Republican.”
“I was honored to receive President Trump’s endorsement early on in this race, and I’m excited to welcome him to the great state of Alaska,” Palin said in a statement released soon after Trump’s rally was announced.https://t.co/36zW9rLpPD via @AKPublicNews
— Michael King of Zarembo (@King0fZaremb0) June 30, 2022
Establishment and never-Trump Republicans wish the former President would just go away, but that is not what candidates who are vying for his endorsement seem to be saying. Trump-endorsed candidates have been racking up primary wins all over the country, and this past Tuesday’s slate of primaries was no exception.
In Colorado, Lauren Boebert won with 65% of the vote. In Illinois, State Senator Darren Bailey won and will go up against incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Democrat machine there.
Also in Illinois, Reps. Mary Miller (R-IL) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) went up against each other for a redrawn district. Trump-endorsed Miller emerged the winner in that race.
In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt won with 69% of the vote. and in Utah, Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Burgess Owens both won primaries each garnering 61% of the vote in their respective races.
So far, 30 Trump endorsed candidates have won their primaries. Others do not take place until August.
There's nothing better than a Saturday night Trump rally!
By Mark Hemingway and Ben Weingarten for RealClearInvestigations
The historic surge of illegal immigrants across America’s southern border is fueling a hidden crime spree few in Washington seem willing or able to address: widespread identity theft by migrants who need U.S. credentials to work.
An extensive review of government reports, think-tank research, news accounts, and interviews with policymakers and scholars suggests the problem involves millions of people – though measuring it with precision is difficult because of the lack of data provided by authorities.
A telling indication of the scope of the criminality is provided by a little-known government accounting book, the Social Security Administration’s Earnings Suspense File (ESF). It reflects the earnings of employees whose W-2 wage and tax statements have names and Social Security numbers that do not match official records. The total has increased tenfold from $188.9 billion at the dawn of the millennium to $1.9 trillion in 2021.
Officials have historically ascribed a “high proportion” of the file’s growth to wages reported by illegal immigrants, and it has swelled alongside their population, which stands at a conservatively estimated 11.5 million today, 7 million of whom are employed. Among those doing so on the books, federal authorities have found that well over1 million are using Social Security numbers belonging to someone else – i.e. stolen or “shared” with a relative or acquaintance – or that are fabricated.
The data held in the ESF would enable authorities to pursue many of the fraudsters, but the IRS and other agencies responsible for enforcing the law have been reluctant to investigate, and regulations have prevented meaningful information-sharing among them. This identity-related crime is providing a windfall for the U.S. government.
A 2017 study from the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform found that the federal government collects about $22 billion annually in tax receipts from illegal aliens, with the bulk going toward Social Security ($12.6 billion) and Medicare ($5.9 billion) – programs from which noncitizens are ineligible to receive benefits. FAIR estimated that illegal migrants also paid $3.3 billion in federal income tax – a smaller proportion primarily due to illegal aliens’ lower wage levels – and another $1 billion in state income taxes.
In other words, the fraud has the effect of bolstering financially shaky federal programs. In one of the agency’s rare direct statements on the issue, Social Security Administration Chief Actuary Stephen Goss told CNN in 2014 that without “undocumented immigrants paying into the system, Social Security would have entered persistent shortfall of tax revenue to cover payouts starting in 2009.
” Leading progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal echoed this observation in 2018, arguing that a “complication of [then-president] Trump’s plans to limit immigration is the effect to our Social Security Earnings Suspense File – money that keeps our Social Security system afloat,” including that provided by “undocumented immigrants.”
Another complication of Trump’s plans to limit immigration is the effect to our Social Security Earnings Suspense File – money that keeps our Social Security system afloat.
The tax money of undocumented immigrants goes to this file, which held $1.2 trillion at the end of 2012. pic.twitter.com/q6sz4ksxpE
Given Washington’s bipartisan willingness to tolerate illegal immigration – whether driven by the multicultural left or businesses interests seeking cheap labor – authorities have focused on this apparent windfall to the U.S. Treasury. But they have largely ignored the costs. These include the significantstrain illegal immigrant households place on public finances, which FAIR and others estimate vastly outweigh their tax contributions, their impacts on crime and the job market – and on the victims of identity theft.
Reports dating back over a decade show that hundreds of thousands of Americans are unknowingly “sharing” their Social Security numbers with illegal immigrants. Such victims may face tax bills for income they didn’t earn or depleted benefits.
Worse, some may experience the burden of bad credit histories and criminal records inaccurately attributed to themselves after being issued SSNs that illegal aliens had previously invented and used. The overall impact on American citizens is largely unknown because federal, state, and local governments as well as financial institutions have generally failed to notify them even when fraud is suspected.
The relevant agencies were largely non-responsive to RealClearInvestigation’s requests for updated figures on the size, scope, and extent of the fraud. Nor have lawmakers recently given voice to the victims.
Congress seems to have last held a hearing spotlighting the defrauded over a decade ago. Related legislation aimed at reducing Social Security number fraud in employment has typicallylanguished, and many lawmakers RCI contacted indicated only a passing knowledge of the issue.
One thing experts do agree on is that the problem is likely to get worse as more illegal immigrants cross the border and seek work.
Immigration Reform Spurs Fraud
The growth in illegal immigrant identity fraud, reflected in part by the booming Earnings Suspense File, serves as an ironic instance of regulation becoming the mother of criminal innovation.
In 1986, Congress for the first time made it explicitly unlawful for employers to hire illegal immigrants. The Immigration Reform and Control Act required those seeking employment to fill out I-9 forms attesting to citizenship or work-authorized immigrant status, and provide corroborating documentation and a valid Social Security number.
The law, signed by President Reagan amid great fanfare, was supposed to end the problem of illegal immigration, and as part of the grand bargain nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants, most of them from Mexico, were granted U.S. citizenship. But the law did not slow the pipeline of immigration as it was intended to do, and it would drive many illegal aliens – not only those crossing the border under cover but also those not allowed to work while awaiting court hearings that can take months or even years to take place – to fraud.
According to the libertarian CATO Institute, the 1986 law spurred the “creation of a large‐scale black market for legal documents in the United States. The value of document fraud increased after ICRA because false documents became necessary for illegal immigrants to fill out an I-9 form to work.”
Aliens can procure SSNs in severalways: Some simply conjure a nine-digit SSN out of thin air. Others use the numbers of their children who were born in the U.S. Still others steal them directly from individuals, purchase them from dealers for $80 to $200 along with a green card as can be done in Los Angeles, or via the dark web for as little as $4.
In a rare instance of enforcement, in June the Department of Justice announced that a joint operation between the IRS Cyber Crimes Unit and the FBI had seized the “SSNDOB marketplace” – a series of lucrative websites touted on the dark web that sold illegally obtained Social Security numbers of more than 20 million Americans. But “synthetic identity fraud” persists – the most common form of ID theft, where fraudsters create an entirely new identity by stealing the Social Security numbers of children or poor adults with little credit history.
While some illegal immigrants work off the books, the Social Security Administration has previously said that 75% are using fake or stolen numbers. By doing so, they gain access to broader employment opportunities. There is another powerful incentive for paying taxes as well.
By dint of their generally low income levels, illegals can receive reimbursements through making use of deductions and exemptions, as well as rebates via refundable credits – leaving many with tax liabilities of zero or even as net recipients of government largesse. Immigration proponents contend that many do so in the hope that paying their taxes through employer withholding will weigh in their favor in a future amnesty, reflecting good behavior.
Their fraud can be detected each year when employers submit W-2s. The Social Security Administration analyzes the W-2s to detect inaccuracies, such as mismatched names to the numbers it has on file.
This is where the Earnings Suspense File comes into play. ESF, established in 1937, was long an accounting for wayward tax and Social Security payments – for instance when a newly married woman changed her name but forgot to notify the SSA. Should a legitimate taxpayer find he didn’t get tax refunds or Social Security benefits because of a mix-up with his Social Security number, ESF records ideally would help him get what he was owed. Unreconciled filings would remain in the ESF.
For decades relatively little money was recorded in the file. According to the Government Accountability Office, in the three decades between 1950 and 1980 just $33 billion in uncredited earnings were recorded.
Contributions to the ESF exploded after passage of the ICRA in 1986, as a Social Security Administration inspector general report providing a chart showing annual contributions to the fund makes clear:
The Earnings Suspense File exploded after passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
Uncredited earnings rose to $77.3 billion in the 1980s, would double in the 1990s to $188.9 billion, and then grow by a factor of 10 over the next two decades to an accumulated $1.9 trillion today – surging by $409 billion between the years 2012 and 2016 alone, according to documents obtained by the mass migration-skeptical Immigration Reform Law Institute via FOIA request.
A 2015 audit from SSA’s IG reports that in a given year as many as one in 25 American workers supplied their employers with false information – “each year, SSA posts to the ESF 3 to 4 percent of the total W-2s and 1.4 to 1.8 percent of the total wages received from employers.”
A 2018 Treasury inspector general report documented more than 1.3 million cases of employment-related identity theft from 2011-2016, and 1.2 million cases in which illegal aliens used Social Security numbers that belonged to someone else or were fabricated in 2017 alone. The Social Security Administration projects this number will rise to 2.9 by 2040.
Private estimates of Social Security number theft have ranged substantially higher.
A 2020 GAO report on employment-related identity fraud identified more than 2.9 million Social Security numbers with “risk characteristics associated with SSN misuse.”
“There’s massive amounts of fraud, the SSA knows it’s happening, and they know it’s your Social Security numbers…being used. These IG reports make it explicitly clear,” said Jon Feere, a former Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official now with the “pro-immigrant, low immigration” Center for Immigration Studies. “And they basically say that they believe that one of the main reasons for this fraud is because of the employment of illegal aliens.”
Known Fraud, Little Enforcement
The existence of the ESF means the Social Security Administration and the IRS, with which it coordinates, are sitting on a database containing a substantial population of fraudsters against American citizens. For the better part of two decades, government watchdogs have encouraged these agencies to put the data to use, but they have been reticent.
A 2005 Social Security Administration IG report stated: “Although SSA continues to coordinate with DHS on immigration issues, it does not routinely share information regarding egregious employers who submit inaccurate SSNs. In our opinion, any serious plan to address SSN misuse and growth of the ESF must allow SSA to share such information with DHS,” reads the report.
A 2006 GAO report similarly recommended that the SSA, IRS, and DHS share data to address this problem. However, federal law severely limits the SSA and IRS from sharing information from tax forms, in part on privacy grounds. The ACLU called attempts to coordinate information-sharing between the SSA and immigration enforcement authorities during the Trump administration an “all-out assault on our legal rights and our immigrant communities.”
Since SSA lacks enforcement authority, the George W. Bush-led Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency proposed a rule setting forth potential penalties for employers who did not respond to SSA “no match letters” – notifications sent to employers informing them of employees whose SSNs don’t match government records.
The proposed rule kicked off a firestorm of opposition from immigrant advocates. In 2008, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated 33 employees who had been fired by their employer after receiving a no match letter. The court ruled a no match letter alone wasn’t sufficient to determine whether employees were in violation of the law.
The Obama administration put an end to no match letters altogether. Jason Hopkins, the investigations manager for the IRLI, told RCI that the Obama administration did so in service of its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“Dreamers”) program, which allowed illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children exemption from deportation and eligibility for work permits.
“If they went in [and] applied for a DACA application, and they had to actually admit they put in fake social security numbers, they’d be essentially admitting to perjury,” Hopkins says. “So that would have scared them off, and Obama wanted them to apply for this program.”
In 2019, the Trump administration-led Social Security Administration resumed sending out no match letters, delivering 1.6 million notices across 2019 and 2020. The Biden administration again discontinued the practice.
The SSA did not respond to RCI’s multiple attempts to contact it regarding related policies.
The IRS has enforcement powers the SSA lacks, but has historically disavowed responsibility for dealing with illegal alien ID theft. In 2016 then-IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who faced impeachment hearings for defying congressional subpoenas and the destruction of evidence, told Congress, “We have Social Security and immigration authorities and others who enforce that part of the law, and if we start looking behind the system and doing their job for them, we’re going to discourage a lot of people from paying the taxes they owe.”
Consistent with this view, a 2020 GAO report on employment-related identity fraud found that the IRS was not tracking numerous forms of employment-related identity fraud.
The IRS’ Internal Revenue Manual, which governs employees’ policies and practices, refers to those engaged in ID fraud as “borrowers,” defending this language as neutral, given that some may be “borrowing” an SSN from another family member to work, rather than engaging in “actual identity theft.”
When CNS News asked the IRS in 2018 how many taxpayer accounts it had referred for criminal prosecution, of the 1.3 million Treasury’s inspector general had flagged for identity fraud, the agency said “We do not have this information.” Similarly, the IG report recommended that the IRS notify the 458,658 victims of ID theft identified in 2017 – and the IRS does not appear to have notified anyone.
When RCI asked the IRS about its policies for handling ID theft, the agency did not confirm it had done anything in response to the IG’s findings or identity fraud specifically related to illegal immigration. A spokesman said that “in recent years, we’ve referred people” – that is, from the general U.S. population – “for prosecution all the time, and where appropriate, we work with other law-enforcement agencies.”
The IRS’s guide to employment-related identity theft highlights notices it might send to taxpayers indicating potential fraud, but it is not clear how many such letters it sends out, and the burden overwhelmingly falls on the victims to be vigilant and take steps to clear their names.
Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has curtailed worksite enforcement. Between halting no match letters and DHS’ leniency, Spencer Raley, a researcher with FAIR, told RCI, “From a strictly immigration-enforcement standpoint, nothing is being done to combat the issue of illegal aliens committing document fraud in order to obtain employment.”
RCI asked a series of questions of ICE, which leads criminal investigations into both document fraud and worksite enforcement, on the nature and extent of its targeting of those engaging in ID theft/fraud in employment, and whether and to what end it coordinated with other agencies on identifying such individuals for investigation. As of the time of publication, it had not responded to the questions.
Law enforcement agencies have periodically made illegal alien ID fraud busts in recent years, but not at meaningful levels relative to the previously reported number of fraudsters.
Given that Medicare is a beneficiary of the fraud, RCI posed a series of questions to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pertaining to ESF, and whether it was aware of, or did anything to contact those whose SSNs might have been fraudulently used associated with Medicare contributions. A CMS spokesperson referred RCI to the Social Security Administration.
RCI posed similar questions to tax authorities in both California and Texas – states dominated by opposing political parties but each with substantial illegal alien populations – to ascertain whether they, like the federal government, were tracking taxes paid by those potentially using fraudulent IDs, including illegal aliens, and doing anything to pursue them.
California’s Franchise Tax Board told RCI that it does not have a state Earnings Suspense File, nor does it track how much tax revenue annually is attributable to individuals misrepresenting themselves on filings. It did note, “If we suspect identity theft on an individual tax return, we send a notice to the taxpayer to let them know they may be a victim and how to verify the authenticity of the tax return on file.” With respect to enforcement, the board indicated “Fraudulent claims and suspected ID theft cases may be sent to” its Criminal Investigations Bureau, which partners with other state law enforcement authorities. The board emphasized that California further partners with “state, city, federal and industry partners” to “protect the entire tax ecosystem,” with a focus on “widespread fraudulent schemes and threat groups,” rather than those filing and paying taxes.
As of the time of publication, Texas had not responded to RCI’s inquiries.
Banks and credit agencies also have their own extensive “sub-files” for people who share the same Social Security number, but privacy laws make it impossible to get information on someone who has stolen one’s SSN from a third party, even though the behavior of the person stealing one’s number may end up affecting one’s ability to get government benefits or credit.
Credit rating agencies Equifax, Experian, and Transunion did not respond to RCI’s queries around illegal alien identity fraud.
What Victims Face
Marcus Calvillo, a father of six from Grand Prairie, Texas, experienced one of the more harrowing episodes of identity fraud on record, at least in the eyes of the prosecutor who helped bring him justice. Calvillo’s life was upended after an illegal immigrant named Fernando Neave-Ceniceros was first arrested on drug trafficking charges in Kansas in 1993, then a slew of other ones, including a sex crime involving a minor, and his twice failing to register as a sex offender.
The criminal activity was recorded under Calvillo’s stolen identity – Neave-Ceniceros’ fingerprints were linked to Calvillo’s name in national criminal databases – making it difficult for the innocent Calvillo to pass the cursory background checks required to hold a job and support his family.
At one point, Calvillo was working as a cable installer when he was abruptly fired. When asked why, he told the Associated Press he was only told, “You know what you did.” Calvillo also had disputes with the IRS over taxes on wages that had been paid to Neave-Ceniceros but recorded under his name.
After years of struggling to get help – a struggle similarly encountered by other victims – Calvillo contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson, who had been pursuing another identity theft case, who helped him get justice. In 2016, Neave-Ceniceros was convicted on a series of charges including aggravated identity theft and misuse of a Social Security number. “I don’t know of a case where the theft of an identity had a more devastating impact than this one,” Anderson told the Associated Press.
Despite wreaking havoc on Calvillo’s life, Neave-Ceniceros was only sentenced to one year and a day in prison for his crimes.
Horror stories such as Calvillo’s still abound. “I’ve been fired from jobs and have been accused of crimes I didn’t commit because my identity was stolen,” identity theft victim Adrian Gonzalez told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram last year. “I don’t know what to do anymore, I think I might need to change my name.”
Linda Trevino, a Chicago suburb resident, was another victim, one of the hundreds of thousands NBC News cited in a report from over a decade ago. She had been denied a job at a local Target because someone using her SSN also worked there. Her number, in fact, had been used to obtain employment at 37 other employers, leaving her haunted by the IRS with letters asking her to pay others’ taxes, and facing creditors.
Children are victims of fraud too, and in fact may be prime targets given the clean records their IDs provide for thieves, and that conduct engaged in in their names may go undetected for years. Former California congressman Elton Gallegly wrote in The Hill in 2012 of a number of child victims of illegal immigrant fraud, including among them:
A 3-year-old issued an SSN already in use for years by a twice-arrested illegal alien, impacting the child’s credit, medical, and work history.
A 9-year-old denied Medicaid due to wages reported on his SSN.
A 13-year-old denied as a dependent on her family’s return for supposedly making too much money.
Immigration advocates downplay the criminality involved. “Most workers are buying documents they believe to be false,” a representative of the National Immigration Law Center told the Los Angeles Times. “There isn’t really any intention of stealing someone’s identity.” But even when immigration-related identity theft lacks specific criminal intent, the confusion that ID theft creates when dealing with tax bills, receiving government benefits, facing ruined credit, and other problems can upend a person’s life.
Citizens who discover someone else is using their Social Security number will quickly learn there’s little they can do about it. According to the Social Security Administration, proof that one’s SSN has been stolen and is being used by someone else isn’t sufficient reason to change one’s Social Security number. One must prove significant harm as a result, and the process is onerous – in 2014 the agency only permitted a total of 250 people to change their Social Security number. The Federal Trade Commission details the numerous steps those who believe they might have been defrauded should take to get their lives back.
The problem is so extensive that Mike Chapple, a professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, told Forbes, “It’s totally reasonable to assume that your Social Security number has been compromised at least once, if not many times.”
Little Legislative Relief
One of the seminal victories for proponents of ID integrity in the workplace was the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, which launched the E-Verify system.
That its author, Rep. Ken Calvert, another California Republican, was still struggling 15 years later to movelegislation making the program mandatory, illustrates the uphill battle the limited number of immigration hawks in Washington face.
The DHS-run program, which compares employment eligibility information from I-9 forms to government records, remains required solely of federal contractors. Only a small minority of states have mandated its use by employers. Republican senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton tried to pass a federal law that would simultaneously mandate E-Verify and raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, but with the Senate controlled by Democrats, that legislation died.
On the House side, Georgia Republican Buddy Carter has sought to pass legislation multipletimes that would require the IRS to produce a report on whether it could use proprietary information to identify illegal aliens fraudulently working in the U.S., to no avail.
At the state level, even Republican red Texas, mired in problems pertaining to illegal immigration, has had difficulty finding the political will to police the workplace. “At least 30 bills mandating E-Verify have been introduced in Texas in the past decade,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported last year. “Only one has passed, and none addressed undocumented workers, employers or temporary employment agencies using fraudulently obtained identities.”
Until recently, it wasn’t clear whether states even had the authority to prosecute identity theft by illegal immigrants. In March of 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that at least in some circumstances, they do, overturning a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that had voided the convictions of three illegal immigrants under the state’s identity theft law who had used stolen SSNs to obtain jobs.
The rapidly changing political landscape may be the only thing that could impact the broader trajectory of illegal immigration from which the fraud springs. The populist turn of the post-Donald Trump Republican Party is appealing to working class voters with a strong interest curbing illegal immigration to put upward pressure on wages.
Recent elections also show Hispanics voting for Republicans in significantly higher numbers, in part because of the Democrats’ more liberal border policies.
In the meantime, the illegal immigrant population continues to swell. The Biden administration has released over one million illegal immigrants into the U.S., in addition to the more than 700,000 “got-aways” who evaded apprehension, and over 190,000 unaccompanied minors released into the interior – for a total of nearly two million people. “To put it bluntly, the Biden administration, and other Democratic administrations, they just don’t care,” says Jason Hopkins.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Joe Kennedy, the high school football coach who was fired in 2015 for visibly praying on the field after games.
Justice Gorsuch affirmed the coach’s First Amendment rights in the majority opinion of Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District saying that, “[r]espect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic.”
The decision was heralded as a “tremendous victory for Coach Kennedy and religious liberty for all Americans” by Kennedy’s legal team, First Liberty.
Many conservatives are hailing the ruling as a first step towards restoring religious liberty in America, including Ted Cruz who tweeted, “I’m thankful the Supreme Court fully enforced the First Amendment—in a major victory for religious liberty—and upheld our God-given right to practice our faith.”
The President of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, tweeted that, “The Court has taken a significant step in repairing America’s foundation of religious freedom, which has been under relentless assault over the last 60 yrs.”
The Court has taken a significant step in repairing America's foundation of religious freedom, which has been under relentless assault over the last 60 yrs. The Court clarified that Coach Kennedy's job should not be threatened because he does it according to his Christian faith. https://t.co/Jthfu0m4w1
Kennedy served as an assistant coach for the Bremerton School District in Bremerton, Washington. During his tenure as coach he had a post-game tradition of kneeling for prayer at the 50-yard line. Sometimes students and other coaches voluntarily joined him in this tradition.
Justice Gorsuch explains in the majority opinion, which was signed by Justices Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Barrett, and Chief Justice Roberts, that coach Kennedy was wrongly fired for his visible prayers. The controversy in this case hinged on the fact that Kennedy was serving in an official school capacity when he prayed, and the School District sought to prove that his prayers were coercing students into his religion, which could be a violation of the Establishment Clause.
Justice Gorsuch takes several pages to explain why this specific case does not violate the Establishment Clause and concludes that:
“Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination. Mr. Kennedy is entitled to summary judgment on his religious exercise and free speech claims.”
Unsurprisingly, the left is outraged by the decision.
In response to the ruling Representative Illhan Omar (D-MN) tweeted that, “The Supreme Court just ruled that public school teachers can pressure students to join in prayer at public school events but can also retaliate against those that don’t join in. Religious freedom is dead in America.”
Not that it matters to Omar, but this is the exact opposite of what they ruled. Majority spent several pages specifically explaining why there was no coercion and why this case was different than past cases where court has ruled that school prayer was "problematically coercive" https://t.co/JoeopG5ma4
However, Kennedy’s lawyer, Kelly Shackelford, explained that, far from any coercion, two students who did not join the prayers were even promoted to team captain.
Gorsuch also explained in the opinion that, “The First Amendment’s protections extend to ‘teachers and students,’ neither of whom ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.’ It is not dispositive that Coach Kennedy served as a role model and remained on duty after games. To hold otherwise is to posit an ‘excessively broad job descriptio[n]’ by treating everything teachers and coaches say in the workplace as government speech subject to government control.”
Would Slate news write headlines like this if the coach in question were Muslim or Jewish? This is exactly what an Amicus brief filed in the case by the Shaffer-Jaff law firm posited.
“Such religious expression does not suddenly become government speech just because it occurs at a place of public employment,” the brief stated. “Because of the well-understood personal and individual nature of expressions of faith, it would be wrong as a factual matter to strip such expressions of their individual significance by attributing them to a person’s employer. No one, for example, would ever view an Abercrombie employee’s decision to wear a headscarf at work as Abercrombie’s endorsement of Islam.”
“A Jewish person who teaches public school students while wearing a yarmulke is doing nothing different in kind than a teacher or a coach privately praying in the view of his students or others.”
Justice Sotomayor refutes this idea in her dissent which was signed also by Justices Bryer and Kagan. Sotomayor sides with the school district stating that, “the District has a strong argument that Kennedy’s speech, formally integrated into the center of a District event, was speech in his official capacity as an employee that is not entitled to First Amendment protections at all.”
“His right to pray at any time and in any manner he wishes while exercising his professional duties is not absolute.”
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A pregnancy center in Longmont, Colorado was vandalized with spray paint and set on fire early Saturday morning, just hours after the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
According to authorities, fire broke out around 3 a.m. Officials also said that the building sustained fire damage.
Where’s the primetime hearing on recent attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers?
In addition to the fire, which authorities are investigating as arson, the front entrance to the building had been vandalized with black spray paint with symbols often used by Antifa, and a statement reading, “if abortions aren’t safe neither are you.”
That phrase has been found at the scene of other attacks, like the firebombing in Buffalo, New York.
Radical pro-abortion activists groups like “Jane’s Revenge” and “Ruth Sent Us” have taken credit for some of the attacks.
The violent rhetoric and protests by leftists pro-abortion activists has been escalating since a draft of the decision was leaked in May. While speculation abounds as to who might have leaked the document, there has been no recent information on the incident.
Earlier this month, an assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanugh was thwarted when a California man was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland carrying such items as knives, a pistol, ammunition, pepper spray, and zip ties.
Since then, there have been attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and churches in at least 20 states and Washington D.C. The attacks have ranged from graffiti on the walls of centers and churches in Washington state and in the south, Molotov cocktails hurled at the pro-life Wisconsin Family Action Center, and a firebombing previous to the one in Colorado taking place in Buffalo, New York.
Abortion protesters also essentially held Arizona lawmakers hostage Friday night as they attempted to breach the State capitol building. Elected officials were told not to exit the building and tear gas was used to disperse the crowd.
Other Supreme Court Justices have had protests take place outside their homes.
In anticipation of the striking down of Roe v Wade, a far-left #Antifa-linked group named Jane’s Revenge carried out violent attacks on pregnancy resource centers across the US for weeks. Their current flyers in DC call for mass violence tonight: https://t.co/OioJvM0NUupic.twitter.com/ezSL4YDuN6
Back in 2020, then Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appeared to threaten Justices Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch should any abortion laws be rolled back.
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
After the decision on Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called the Court “illegitimate” and encouraged pro-abortion activists to go “into the streets” to fight the ruling.
BREAKING: Congresswoman @AOC has arrived in front of the Supreme Court and is chanting that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade is “illegitimate” and calls for people to get “into the streets” | @TPUSApic.twitter.com/jNkCYDrLtz
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), also previously known for encouraging confrontation after former President Donald Trump’s election, also joined protesters outside the Supreme Court building,
“The hell with the Supreme Court—we will defy them. Women will be in control of their bodies.” Then, referencing the crowd, said to reporters,”You see this out here? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Radical-Leftist Maxine Waters says “to hell with the Supreme Court, we will defy them!”
The FBI is assisting in the investigation in Colorado.
The ratio of left wing attacks on pregnancy centers to right wing attacks on Pride Events this month is increasing at a hyperbolic rate but you don't hear about the former because all of the people screaming about "tolerance" think those people actually deserve it.
— The Only Gary Johnson Stan (@colorblindk1d) June 20, 2022
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Amidst calls for his impeachment by some Democrats, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has found an unlikely defender – Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Sotomayor offered praise for her colleague, stating he is a very personable individual who “cares deeply” about the integrity of the court.
“Justice Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name, every one of them,” she told attendees of the American Constitution Society’s 2022 national convention on Thursday.
“And not only does he know their names, he remembers their families’ names and histories.”
She said despite their differences of opinion on how to help people, they maintain a friendship because she knows Thomas is a “man who cares deeply about the court as an institution … about the people who work here.”
As the Supreme Court prepares for the end of the most tumultuous term in decades, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says she and Justice Clarence Thomas share a “common understanding about people and kindness” https://t.co/523bw0VLOE
Sonia Sotomayor’s kind words towards Clarence Thomas were a rare moment of positivity for the longest-serving justice, the second black justice, and the most conservative member currently serving on the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor hasn’t always lobbed kindness towards conservatives on the Supreme Court, however.
In oral arguments regarding Roe v. Wade, she suggested the Court was not considering the law itself, but rather seeking to pursue its reversal due to the makeup of the justices.
“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” she asked.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a consistent supporter of abortion rights, grilled Mississippi’s solicitor general, asking whether the institution of the Supreme Court would “survive the stench” of overturning Roe in what would appear to be a political act. https://t.co/sbHcIObnjQ
Sonia Sotomayor’s comment comes as Democrats have been actively calling for Thomas’ impeachment due to the alleged conduct of his wife, Virginia Thomas.
Reports have surfaced that Thomas’ wife exchanged text messages with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other officials about alleged election fraud.
Clarence Thomas should resign.
If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.
A petition by the far-left group MoveOn.org calling for Thomas’ impeachment has eclipsed 236,000 signatures. Politico reports that House Democrats are “outraged” over the situation with his wife and they have the option to impeach.
Far-left Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is demanding Thomas resign or face impeachment for what she has determined are ethical breaches.
“Clarence Thomas should resign,” AOC tweeted.
“If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.”
SOTOMAYOR: “Over 100,000 children” are hospitalized due to COVID, with “many on ventilators”
BRET BAIER: “The number’s not 100,000. It’s roughly 3,500 in hospitals now?”
Sotomayor made a widely panned false claim about the seriousness of COVID infection in children during oral arguments over the Biden administration’s efforts to mandate vaccines.
“We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators” due to the coronavirus, she said.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky would later state that the Supreme Court Justice was wrong, pointing out at the time there were 3,500 children in the hospital.
Thomas meanwhile, joked to the media about when he’d be leaving the Supreme Court.
Clarence Thomas says he’s told the media for a long time that he’ll leave his job when he gets as bad at it as the media is at theirs. This is great: pic.twitter.com/mjh9ozaxuV
“One of the things I’d say in response to the media is when they talk about, especially early on, about the way I did my job, I said ‘I will absolutely leave the court when I do my job as poorly as you do yours,'” he recalled. “And that was meant as a compliment really.”
The audience erupted in laughter.
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Representative Tom Rice, one of only 10 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over his alleged role in inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol, was soundly defeated in the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 7th District.
Rice lost to Russell Fry, the South Carolina State House’s majority whip, who earned Trump’s endorsement. Fry, according to the latest numbers, more than doubled the vote attained by Rice.
Rice called Fry to concede the race Tuesday.
Fry’s victory was so resounding he was able to avoid a runoff by winning 51% of the vote.
U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection, has been ousted from Congress in his South Carolina GOP primary. Rice was defeated by state Rep. Russell Fry, who was backed by Trump. https://t.co/JXYD2GA1R0pic.twitter.com/m7dVFme649
The sad showing for Tom Rice comes roughly 17 months after he shocked observers by becoming only one of 10 Republicans to join Democrats in their vote to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot.
“He sat there and watched the Capitol get sacked and took pleasure in that. He said: ‘Look what I created! Look how rabid these people are to follow me.’” Rice recalled. “That pushed me over the edge. That’s what a dictator would do.”
The congressman did not shy away from the vote either, repeatedly leaning into it as a sign of his being a stand-up guy.
Unfortunately, now that Rice is soon to be out of a job, he’ll be doing a lot more sitting down.
RINO Rep. Tom Rice voted to impeach Trump and said that Liz Cheney should be Speaker of the House.
He just lost his primary to @RussellFrySC and only has 25% of the vote.
Ironically, Tom Rice, on the day of the primary, told voters Trump is “not the future of the Republican Party” and predicted his vote to impeach the former President would be “advantageous to me politically.”
“Oh, I think it’s advantageous to me politically. I think I’m just telling the truth,” Rice said of his vote to impeach. “You know, the truth will set you free. And I think that Donald Trump is not the future of the Republican Party.”
“I think he is the past, and we need to move on,” he added.
The former President has said Rice is a “coward who abandoned his constituents by caving to Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left.”
One of the few people supporting Tom Rice and perhaps inadvertently solidifying his defeat was former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who heralded the lawmaker as a hero for voting to impeach Trump.
“There were a lot of people who wanted to vote like Tom but who just didn’t have the guts to do it,” Ryan claimed at a campaign stop.
Rep. Tom Rice (R), likely losing renomination in SC07 — tonight or in a June 28 runoff — campaigned with ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan as the contest wound down.
Suggests Ryan isn’t exactly an influential figure in GOP politics these days, to put it mildly.
It takes absolutely no ‘guts’ as a Republican to have been on the same side of Democrats and the entire national media.
Other impeachers, like Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, is trailing her primary opponent, Harriet Hageman, a Wyoming attorney who has the backing of Trump, by a whopping 30 percentage points.
Poll: Harriet Hageman ‘Overwhelming Favorite’ to Oust Liz Cheney, Up 28 Points: @Fabrizio_Lee
Fellow Never Trump Republican Kinzinger announced months ago that he was leaving Congress in part due to Democrats in Illinois rewarding his fealty by unveiling a new congressional map that significantly impacted his chances of winning in 2022. After all he has done for them!
The latest test of Trump’s leverage in the Republican Party comes on Tuesday, as he has backed the challengers of two Republican incumbents, one who voted for impeachment, and one who attacked him over the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Trump is backing State Rep. Russell Fry who is running against Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), and former State Rep. Katie Arrington, who is challenging Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
Anybody have a list because i'm voting in the primary Tuesday in SC and i will vote them out… https://t.co/dlMPbxwsqU
Tom Rice is one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. His decision to do so was was a curious one, as his district voted for Trump by a 19-point margin in 2020.
Rice defended his impeachment vote, claiming “Defending the Constitution is a bedrock of the Republican platform, defend the Constitution, and that’s what I did. That was the conservative vote.”
In response, at a rally in South Carolina, Trump ripped Rice, saying, “And now Tom Rice looks like a total fool.”
Russell Fry is portraying Rice as a “traitor” to the district.
In Tuesday’s other race, freshman Rep. Nancy Mace predicted she will beat the Trump-backed Arrington by double digits.
Arrington ran previously in the district and defeated former Governor Mark Sanford in the primary but lost in the general election.
Mace drew Trump’s ire for voting to hold former Trump advisor Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena from the Democrats’ January 6 committee.
Perhaps realizing that she made a powerful enemy, Mace would later travel to New York City, seemingly for the sole purpose of standing outside of Trump Tower and pretending she was a big Trump supporter.
And while some Republicans who, immediately following the Capitol riot were critical of Trump and later softened their stance, Rice definitely has not.
“He watched it (Jan. 6) happen. He reveled in it. And he took no action to stop it. I think he had a duty to try to stop it, and he failed in that duty. He’s the past. I hope he doesn’t run again. And I think if he does run again, he hurts the Republican Party. We desperately need somebody who’s going to bring people together. And he is not that guy.”
Tom Rice, one of the 10 House Republicans to vote on impeaching Trump, trails in the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 7th district by 17 points.
The 2022 United States Senate elections can best be thought of as the classic battle between the irresistible force and the immovable object. The irresistible force is the playing field. President Joe Biden’s job approval in the RCP Average is currently 39.7%, the lowest of his presidency. That’s about 3.5 points lower than Barack Obama’s job approval was on (midterm) Election Day 2010.
President Obama’s job approval only dipped to 40% briefly, in the immediate aftermath of the botched Obamacare rollout, and it never dropped below 40%. President Donald Trump’s job approval spent much of 2017 below this mark, but in the terrible Republican election year of 2018, it never fell this low.
In other words, this is shaping up to be a worse environment than either of the last three midterms, all of which were nightmares for the party in power.
But the immovable object is real as well: To say that the GOP has failed to field its top team is an understatement. It failed to recruit its preferred candidates in almost every marquee race, including significant failures in New Hampshire, Maryland, Colorado, and Arizona. This deficiency intersects with a reasonably unfavorable map for Republicans; Democrats aren’t defending a single seat in a state that Joe Biden lost, and they have opportunities against Republicans in two states that went for the president in 2020.
Twenty years ago, it would have made more sense to emphasize the immovable object when high quality candidates routinely won in states whose underlying political orientation heavily favored the other party. But that isn’t really how elections work right now. Although candidates matter, they rarely outrun their president’s job approval by more than a handful of points.
Almost all polling in the swing states has shown President Joe Biden’s job approval languishing in the high 30s or low 40s. It’s one thing to ask candidates to run five points ahead of their president’s job approval. But 10 points or more? If their name isn’t Joe Manchin or Susan Collins, it probably isn’t happening .
With that background, here are the Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022.
Honorable Mention, Alaska (Lisa Murkowski): Democrats have effectively conceded this seat, but Murkowski might still be the most vulnerable incumbent up for reelection this year. Probably the only thing keeping her in the game as a fairly moderate senator from a decidedly red state is that the state’s ranked-choice voting procedures in the general election will give strategic-minded Democrats an opportunity to vote for her as their second choice against the more conservative Kelly Tshibaka. While this gives her a path to victory that she probably lacks in a closed primary, it also creates headaches for her; the more she does to court Democrats, the more she alienates the more numerous Republicans in the state.
Tier III Races
11. Washington (Patty Murray): This could rise up the ratings by the end of the cycle depending on how things play out. Republicans are high on their likely nominee, Tiffany Smiley, and Sen. Murray’s polling has been wobbly enough that she bought television time. This is still a very Democratic state, and Murray survived in 2010 when it was more Republican.
At the same time, it is closer to the center than Missouri, and only a point or two further out from the center than Ohio. If former Gov. Eric Greitens loses the Missouri primary, this race probably goes into the top 10, but for now it’s on the outskirts of competitiveness.
10. Ohio (Open seat): Ohio certainly isn’t a recruiting failure for Democrats – Rep. Tim Ryan has perennially been on the recruiting list for Democrats and is probably the strongest they could field. Republicans have nominated author J.D. Vance. The “Hillbilly Elegy” author is well-known but untested, and in the right year this seat could be vulnerable for the GOP. But this is not the right year.
9. Missouri (Open seat): Twenty years ago Missouri was a classic swing state, but with the “Missouruh” portion of the state moving solidly into the GOP column over the past two decades, that tradition is a thing of the past. This is now a Republican state. At the same time, Republicans are locked in a competitive primary, with a potentially problematic candidate waiting in the wings with Eric Greitens leading narrowly in polls.
Greitens has been dogged by a variety of allegations of sexual improprieties and spousal abuse, and he was facing likely impeachment and removal before resigning in 2018. Democrats would definitely choose to face off against him, and if he wins the nomination this race could move up the ratings. But he isn’t the nominee yet, and even if he is, the potential Democratic nominees are probably too far to the left for the state. Overall, the environment and lean of the state would probably leave the race as a tossup at best.
8. Colorado (Michael Bennet): Colorado is one of those states that elections analysts regularly overlook, mostly because of its notable failures for Republicans over the course of the past decade. But the state only leans toward Democrats by a handful of points, and many Republican failures in the past decade are classic “own goals,” as with Ken Buck’s repeated gaffes and Scott McInnis’ decision to plagiarize an article.
This is still a state that Donald Trump lost by only five points in 2016, and where an obscure GOP challenger came within six points of defeating Sen. Michael Bennet the same year. To be sure, 2020 was much worse for Republicans there. We can debate how much of that is Trump-specific but the point is moot; the GOP failed to lure a top-tier challenger into the race, and it is likely only flipping if the bottom truly falls out for Democrats. A missed opportunity for Republicans.
7. North Carolina (Open seat): While Democrats have continued to have success in the Tar Heel state at the state level, at the federal level it has been a series of near misses for them: Since Barack Obama carried the state in 2008, Republicans have won every presidential and Senate race in the state by less than six points.
With Richard Burr retiring, North Carolina would theoretically be a great pickup opportunity for Democrats, but Republicans have a legitimate candidate in Rep. Ted Budd, and the environment is likely too toxic for former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley (who lost a state Supreme Court race in a much more favorable environment in 2020) to have much of a chance.
6. New Hampshire (Maggie Hassan): Republicans had hoped that Gov. Chris Sununu would run against Hassan, a former governor serving her first term in the Senate. Had he done so, this would probably be the most likely seat to flip. But he didn’t, and Republicans have a crowded primary where no candidate has yet raised a million dollars, against a fixture in New Hampshire politics for the past decade who has raised $21 million. But Hassan’s polling has been weak, even against relatively unknown challengers. This could still be a top-tier race by November.
5. Wisconsin (Ron Johnson): We can debate which tier this race belongs in, although Johnson certainly seems intent on doing his level best to make this a top-tier race. But Democrats face a crowded primary and Wisconsin is a swing state now, where the Democratic slate barely prevailed in a great Democratic environment in 2018. This could turn out to be close, but it doesn’t look that way now.
Tier I Races
4. Pennsylvania (Open seat): Distinguishing among the remaining races is tricky; all have a decent claim to the top spot, and all have solid reasons why they belong nearer to the second tier than the top. Pennsylvania has turned out to be something of a worst-case scenario for Republicans.
The party failed to attract a top-tier candidate, leaving Dr. Mehmet Oz (of Oprah Winfrey fame) and hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick as the leading GOP candidates. Oz then emerged from the primary as the leader by just 910 votes. Making matters worse for Republicans, they nominated Doug Mastriano as their gubernatorial candidate, whose erratic behavior threatens to doom the entire GOP ticket.
But Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, has problems of his own, including potentially serious health issues and claims that he stopped a black jogger at gunpoint. This is also a state where, absent a turnaround in national politics, the Democratic nominee is likely going to have to win around 20% of voters who disapprove of the president’s job performance. This is a Herculean task, and it isn’t clear Fetterman is the right candidate to pull it off.
3. Georgia (Raphael Warnock): Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee, is not the candidate most Republicans wanted leading the charge against Sen. Raphael Warnock, the charismatic pastor who won a special election to give Democrats control of the Senate in 2021. Walker is a political novice who faces a flurry of stalking allegations and other claims of violence toward women, as well as embellishing his resume.
But Walker, a star University of Georgia football player in the 1980s, is a legend in much of the state, and has managed to stay on message for most of the cycle so far. Moreover, with Warnock and Stacey Abrams on the Democratic ticket, this is one state where Democrats definitely don’t have to worry about a drop-off in African American turnout.
Georgia has been trending toward Democrats, but some of the swing in 2020 was likely Trump-specific and it was still a couple points to the right of the country as a whole. Warnock already trails in the polls, and in this environment it will be difficult for Warnock to hold on to the seat.
2. Arizona (Mark Kelly): Arizona has trended sharply toward Democrats the past few cycles. Mitt Romney carried the Grand Canyon State by nine points in 2012, but Donald Trump won by just three points in 2016 before losing it by a fraction of a point in 2020. During this time, Republicans lost both Senate seats as well, also narrowly. Arizona is largely a suburban state, and with the suburbs swinging against the GOP nationally, the impact of perceived Democratic Party shortcomings is felt more here.
The Republican frontrunner is unclear, but all of the contenders have been outraised by Sen. Kelly, a popular former astronaut, who picked up the seat in 2020 and now has to defend it just two years later. Kelly is a solid incumbent who has most other things going for him except for the overall political environment. If Biden’s job approval were to rise, or if the GOP were to nominate a problematic candidate, this race would probably move down the rankings quickly. For now, however, Kelly is in deep danger.
1. Nevada (Catherine Cortez Masto): After moving sharply toward Democrats during the 2000s, Nevada has swung back toward the GOP over the past few cycles. Cortez Masto defeated Congressman Joe Heck by just 2.5 percentage points, and Biden beat Trump by a similar margin in 2020, despite winning by almost double that margin nationally. While Adam Laxalt isn’t necessarily the GOP’s top choice, he has a famous family name, and no trouble fundraising.
In the terrible Republican year of 2018, he lost by only four points. The polling has generally shown Cortez Masto languishing in the low-to-mid 40s, which is a dangerous place for an incumbent to dwell. Overall, the incumbent is weaker and the challenger stronger than in Georgia, and the state (for now) lacks the internecine feuds that beset the state parties in the other top-tier races. That’s ultimately what earns this race top billing. Were Laxalt to lose to his main primary opponent, disabled Afghanistan war veteran Sam Brown, this race could tighten.
Syndicated with permission from Real Clear Wire.
Sean Trende is senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics. He is a co-author of the 2014 Almanac of American Politics and author of The Lost Majority.
A new report indicates that the Biden administration has increased the number of illegal immigrant flights into New York, with an additional airport being utilized to handle the overflow in an effort to avoid images getting out to the public.
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rob Astorino posted a video on Sunday purportedly showing more “migrant flights from the southern border” arriving at Stewart International Airport in Orange County.
A reporter shared the video and captioned it with a disclaimer stating “officials say flights are legal under U.S. immigration law.”
EXCLUSIVE*** New video shows the Biden administration’s secret migrant flights from the southern border are now also regularly landing at Stewart International Airport in Orange County (NY). Kathy Hochul does nothing and we the citizens pay all the bills. pic.twitter.com/fUdJhUBLNL
The Political Insider reported earlier this year on video footage originally released by Astorino, which he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, showing illegal immigrants being flown by federal contractors into an airport in New York in the dead of night.
The video shows federal contractors explaining to a police officer in charge of security at the facility that the illegal immigrant flights, which have reportedly been conducted at the Westchester County Airport since August, are to be “on the down-low.”
“The government is betraying the American people,” one contractor can be heard telling a police officer.
EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE: Government contractors admit to flying illegal immigrants to smaller airports to keep the flights on the “down low” and hidden from the public. pic.twitter.com/BXA0NHr6Ue
The New York Post’s Miranda Devine now reports that the Biden administration “has upped the frequency of its secret flights on an industrial scale” and are now utilizing a second airport location in New Windsor.
Referencing Astorino’s latest video, she explains that “migrant flights into New York have ratcheted up in recent weeks to almost one per night.”
Devine adds that “a new airport is being utilized to handle the overflow, in an apparent bid by the administration to avoid images of border chaos before the November midterm elections.”
Column’s up: The Biden administration turbo-charges its secret migrant flights from the southern border into Westchester County airport. Now there are so many illegal migrants they’re sending the overflow to a Hudson Valley airport https://t.co/xKVRzShXsp
Initial reports on the flights into New York airports in the dead of night led Representative Claudia Tenney (R-NY) to call for President Biden’s impeachment.
“This is a complete, aggravated dereliction of duty, which is why … I called for Joe Biden to be impeached and removed,” she demanded in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.”
“His primary obligation as the commander-in-chief and president of the United States is to enforce our laws, to live up to his oath, to enforce our border security and to tell the truth to the American people,” she added.
President Biden should resign or face removal by impeachment for this repeated and aggravated violation of his oath of office to protect the American homeland and its citizens. https://t.co/WRju67z7Pz
The videos show migrants being flown into the airports in the middle of the night and then shipped out on charter buses.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, responding to reports of the flights in October said, “It is our legal responsibility to safely care for unaccompanied children until they can be swiftly reunited with a parent or a vetted sponsor.”
She also pretended there was no meaning behind the late-night hours these flights are being conducted.
Fact-checkers say that Biden “secretly flying illegal immigrants” is all just a misunderstanding.
According to Politifact, such charter flights are mostly “unaccompanied minors” and admits that the flights “are not publicized and sometimes are done in the middle of the night to protect the confidentiality of those being transported and to guard against anyone who would interfere with the flights.”
Further, flights occurred under the Trump and Obama administrations.
DOOCY TIME (from earlier — wasn’t at my desk when it aired): “Why is the administration flying thousands of migrants from the border to FL & NY in the middle of the night?”
Psaki: “Well I’m not sure that it’s in the middle of the night, but let me tell you what’s happening[.]” pic.twitter.com/HOjgU5fbho
(@King0fZaremb0) 
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(@catturd2) 
(@Trump2094578522) 