Do we really live in the most pro-life right now? A CNN interview of a U.S. Senator running against an abortion ban

This flies in the face of traditional GOP politics. Abortion is “not an issue that you want to be talking about,” longtime Republican strategist Doug Heye told CNN. The Democrats have the strength to go unanswered if the issue is not brought up, and call into question the GOP’s sincerely pro-life stance.

Zach Nunn, the Republican challenging Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, touted in a recent ad how “most Iowans support common sense limits on abortion” but that his opponent “votes for the most extreme abortion laws in the world.” Nunn raised his hand during the GOP primary debate when candidates were asked if they supported a policy banning all abortions with no exceptions.

“Democrat politicians have done incredible damage to America, ruining our economy, causing chaos at our border, increasing crime in our cities. They made a difference in our lives. But one thing hasn’t changed: abortion in Nevada,” the spot says.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, Laxalt argued that abortion should be decided at the state level. He said it was a “a falsehood that I would support a federal ban on abortion as a U.S. senator” but noted he would support a potential state referendum banning abortion after 13 weeks of pregnancy.

His opponent, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, is running an ad saying she will “always fight for a women’s right to make our own health care decisions,” while “Adam Laxalt won’t.”

Tiffany Smiley is a Republican Senate candidate in Washington state and she has aired ads opposing a federal ban. In one of her ads, she accuses the senator of painting her as an Extremist. “I’m pro-life, but I oppose a federal abortion ban.”

Murray began airing a straight-to-camera ad shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 42nd amendment. Extreme politicians across our country, now in charge of the most private health care decisions.”

It is a good line to walk for the Republican. Bennet attacked O’Dea in an August spot that featured Colorado women who were upset about the possibility of the overturn of Wade. The spot also noted O’Dea’s past remarks that he would have voted to confirm the conservative justices who decided the Dobbs case.

In a recent ad, the first time candidate and businessman boasted of his outsider credentials and his support for abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.

(O’Dea wants to end the blood sport of the Supreme Court confirmation process and has said that if he were an Obama nominee, he would vote against Elena Kagan, a liberal justice who dissented in the Dobbs ruling)

The Last White Knuckle: Why the GOP Party Can’t Win the Next Mid-Term Senate Election Despite Trump’s Outburst

It’s important to discuss if the issue in the district is showing up in your polling. If the issue isn’t in the polls and the economy is more beneficial to you, talk about it.

Ted Budd said that the Supreme Court made it clear that this was a Raleigh decision, not a Washington decision.

But shortly after making that point, the congressman co-sponsored the House companion bill to Graham’s proposal, which would let elected officials in Washington, and not the North Carolina capital of Raleigh, decide how to regulate abortion.

A white knuckle mid-term election that is racing into its last four weeks with the Senate on a knife-edge has a strong possibility of a Donald Trump-aligned Republican majority in the House.

More than a few Democratic strategists have recently told me they wish the election could have been held earlier this summer, when concerns about abortion rights and Trump’s threat to democracy (in the aftermath of the televised House January 6, 2021, Committee hearings) were at a peak. GOP gains next month will be hard to hold down due to the fact that voters are focused on values, rather than economic issues. But with gas prices rising again, the stock market falling, and any summertime gains in Biden’s approval rating now seemingly stalled, Democrats can’t be sure that will remain true four weeks from today.

The chaos and violence that erupted after Trump refused to accept the result of the last presidential election is just the beginning of what could possibly happen if Republicans don’t do well in the November elections. Ron Johnson raised concerns about the integrity of the vote.

Many Republican candidates are running on the false premise that Trump was cheated out of office. Some, in statewide races for governor or secretary of state posts, could end up controlling future elections. And the ex-President himself is using the campaign as a testing ground for a likely 2024 bid to reclaim the White House.

Over the past week, the push between these priorities has been on display during the first flurry of general election Senate debates. During last week’s televised Arizona encounter, for instance, Republican challenger Blake Masters came out of the gate very strong and kept Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on the defensive by relentlessly linking him to Biden while the conversation initially focused on inflation and border security. But as the discussion shifted toward abortion and election integrity, Kelly clearly regained the momentum, as Masters struggled to explain his support during the GOP primary for a near total ban on abortion and his embrace of Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in 2020.

Elections for all 435 House seats, which tend to be more nationalized races, are more likely to turn on the prevailing environmental winds, which is why the GOP is still strongly favored to flip that chamber.

Republicans have history on their side since a majority of voters believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, with fears of a recession growing and the country still trudging through the aftermath of a once-in-a-century Pandemic. They are pounding Democrats as soft on crime and fans of open borders as migrants stream across, while leaping on Biden’s low approval ratings at a time of global turmoil to frame the election as referendum on a failing presidency.

Many Democrats feared the fight was closer than it was, despite the fact that a number of the major races were in the GOP’s favor. The tone of the campaign changed in June after the Supreme Court electrified the Democratic base by overturning the right to an abortion. Trump, meanwhile, who scares many voters outside his fervent supporters, roared back into the news with his refusal to hand over classified documents he hoarded at his Florida resort. He also foisted a battery of unskilled election-denying GOP nominees on his party – risking its hopes in key races.

For instance, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman on Sunday beseeched around 1,200 supporters in Bucks County, northeast of Philadelphia, where Democrats must run up their margins, to send him to Washington to restore abortion rights, raise the minimum wage and expand access to the health care he says saved his life.

If I’m sent to DC, I will be the 51st vote and my opponent Mehmet Oz is a carpetbagger from New Jersey.

Glenn Youngkin, a rising star in the Republican Party who won in Virginia in 2021, slammed Democrats for causing economic misery and said he was proud to be a Republican.

“Virginians and Americans are seeing inflation go through the roof and cost of living skyrocket and grocery prices and utility bills, and, oh, by the way, cost of university tuitions and everything else they’re seeing,” Youngkin told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

The Case for Joe Biden, the GOP and the Democrats: The Democratic Dems Who Win the 2020 Superconductor Prize Rather than the Presidential Candidate

Will it be the verdict on the leadership of Joe Biden and the Democrats who control Congress? Will it strengthen or weaken the election denialism many Republicans adopted after former President Donald Trump refused to accept his 2020 election loss? How would GOP control of one or both chambers of Congress shape America’s future and the final two years of Biden’s term?

The race in Georgia was rocked by a Daily Beast report that Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker, a retired college football icon, paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend despite campaigning for national prohibitions on the procedure. Despite denying the report, Walker’s struggles are indicative of the troubles of other inexperienced and unvetted candidates that Trump helped win nominations because they signed up to his false claims of election fraud.

An alternative explanation for why Mr. Fetterman did so much better than Mr. Biden in red counties, besides winning some former Trump supporters, is that a different spectrum of voters turned out in 2022 than during the presidential race two years ago.

Another Trump pick, Ohio Senate nominee J.D. Vance has run a lackluster campaign in a state trending red, while Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan has tried to reengage working class voters who have been defecting to Trump. It’s a long shot for Democrats in Ohio.

The Senate candidate in both states that support Trump, Masters in Arizona and Laxalt in Nevada, were viewed less favorably by their Democratic opponents.

In an unprecedented spectacle, the Republican presidential nominee openly lambasting his party’s leader in the Senate, undercutting the forces unleashed by Trump that threaten to again dash his party’s hopes of winning the chamber.

Mark Kelly, who is running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, could hurt Republicans in the race against Masters. The former astronaut, who holds a narrow lead among likely voters in CNN’s polling, blasted Masters in a debate last week for peddling “conspiracies and lies that have no place in our democracy.”

Masters asked whether he believed Biden was the legitimate president to coin a soundbite for a GOP campaign theme. The President is Joe Biden. I am sure you have seen the gas prices recently. He said that he did.

In the months that followed, commentators and pollsters speculated whether voters would prioritize the economy over abortion in casting their vote. Republicans were happy when the abortion decision backlash dipped earlier in the fall.

The findings appear to confirm what Republican Senate leaders made clear long ago – the their best chance in November lies in a relentless focus on the Biden economy and the ex-President not making the campaign all about him.

The kind of political environment that tends to lead to a backlash against the party in the White House is what voters were unhappy with, according to the national exit poll. Other factors, including views on abortion and Biden’s predecessors, may have helped keep the Democrats competitive.

Biden has a weak position across the battleground states that will decide control of the Senate. In CNN polls in Arizona and Nevada last week, he received low ratings from voters. Other recent surveys have put his approval at a comparable 39% in Georgia and Wisconsin and only slightly better (around 44-45%) in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

The national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll released last week offered the latest snapshot of this divergence. Asked what issue they considered most important in 2022, Republicans overwhelmingly chose inflation (52%) and immigration (18%). A comparable share of Democrats picked preserving democracy (32%), abortion (21%) and health care (15%). Inflation, immigration and democracy are on one side of the aisle while abortion, health care and democracy are on the other. Voters with at least a four-year college degree leaned relatively more toward democracy and abortion; those without degrees (including Latinos) tended to stress inflation. (This survey did not include crime as an option, but it too has usually provoked the most concern from Republicans and non-college educated voters.)

The most important of these could be the argument that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the triple Biden legislative accomplishments will lead to a boom in US employment.

Biden’s Initiatives: Why We Are Here, Why We Do Not Want to Be Here, and How We Are Trying to Fix It

But those plant openings are mostly still in the future and only a few Democrats (such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Sen. Kelly, and Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan) are emphasizing those possibilities this year.

The Inflation Reduction Act allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices is one of the things Democrats are trying to highlight. It is possible for candidates to overcome the negative judgement on Biden’s economic management by highlighting his specific initiatives. His main worry is that too many Democrats are focused on abortion rather than the economic message.

Republicans think they have a good chance of winning control of the House and Senate because they have listened to voters and offered solutions, argued Alice Stewart. Democrats decided to focus on threats to democracy over concerns about the cost of groceries and gas when it came to real issues impacting Americans. The election is about the need to feed families and not about the fears of a fallen democracy.

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which is based in Washington, DC. He is also a former senior policy adviser to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on Twitter. His own views are expressed in this piece. View more opinion on CNN.

Dobbs and Masters: Bringing More Support to the Pro-About Movement in the Post-Abortion Era after the Iowa Voting Cuts

We know that abortion is a huge motivating force for voters who identify as Democrats. The dynamic is more complex for independents. A recent KFF Health Tracking Poll found one-third of Democratic women want to hear candidates talk about abortion, but only 16% of independent women share this sentiment.

In fact, polling by FiveThirtyEight suggests abortion has begun to fade from some voters’ minds, as inflation remains stubbornly high, crime rates stay elevated and fears of an economic downturn continue to grow. In the immediate wake of the Dobbs ruling in June, 29% of women aged 18 to 44 listed abortion as one of their top three political priorities. In September, the number dropped to 12%.

Republicans running for office have largely tried to downplay the issue. Blake Masters, the GOP Senate nominee in Arizona, clumsily scrubbed his website of stridently pro-life language, while Adam Laxalt, running for Senate in Nevada, has run ads stressing his lack of interest in changing the status quo.

Imagine a voter who is personally opposed to abortion but knows someone in their life that has had an abortion due to economic pressures. Pledging to champion expanded funding for safety net programs – like the special supplemental nutrition assistance program for women, infants and children (WIC) and programs that aim to reduce maternal mortality – could help them feel more comfortable voting for a candidate who would support greater abortion restrictions.

Some elected Republicans have already pivoted in that direction. The Senate’s leading Republican, locked in a close reelection race, responded to the Dobbs ruling by introducing a package of safety-net proposals that would increase available resources for pregnant women and help mothers and their children with the support they need.

Red states like Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina have opted into a federal program that provides postpartum Medicaid coverage for a year after birth, up from the previous standard of 60 days; it should be a no-brainer for every state that advances restrictions on abortion to follow suit. Indiana and Texas both passed new spending aimed at supporting low-income moms at the same time they enacted restrictions on abortion in a demonstration of their pro-life commitment.

Anomalous News in the House of Representatives: Editorial Note: The 2010 Pennsylvania House Ethics Committee Report on Public Works and the 2016 Presidential Campaign

Editor’s Note: Charlie Dent is a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who was chair of the House Ethics Committee from 2015 until 2017 and chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies from 2015 until 2018. He is a political commentator. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There is more opinion on CNN.

Pennsylvania has two statewide open seat races, one in the senate and the other in the governor’s office. It is a highly unusual occurrence in the commonwealth.

The television program has dominated the air waves. Mastano made a number of false claims regarding the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in an interview on the Real America’s Voice network last week.

The US Senate race is a toss-up between Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman. Oz and Fetterman will debate on Tuesday for the first and only time, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for Fetterman, who suffered a near fatal stroke days before the primary election in May.

Questions have been raised about Fetterman’s capacity to perform the duties of a US senator due to auditory processing issues as a result of his stroke. Fetterman will use closed caption during the debate. Neurological experts have said people with auditory processing or hearing issues often use closed captioning.

The Last Seven Years: How the Philadelphia GOP has fought Oz, Fetterman, Mastriano and the Return of the American Dream: The Case Against Walker

Polling remains tight. Oz’s unfavorable ratings went high after he emerged from the GOP primary. Republican voters have returned to Oz.

He and his allies have been pounding Fetterman on inflation, taxes, fracking and the Green New Deal, a plan to wean the United States from fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Fetterman, an early supporter of US Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been attacked as a radical socialist.

The subject of impeachment proceedings in the capital of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Fetterman has been praised by a far- left Philadelphia District Attorney for his efficient use of commutations and pardons.

As expected, Fetterman has hammered Oz on abortion rights, especially in the Philadelphia media market where the issue resonates most heavily in the four suburban collar counties. Fetterman attempted to tie Oz to Mastriano and all the baggage that came with him.

There is a reason for Republican optimism. Republican momentum is building nationally as likely voters express concerns about inflation and the economy, and Oz is well-positioned to win. The Republicans are moving forward on economic issues despite candidate quality issues, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on abortion, and Trump’s interventions during the election.

There are three toss-up House seats in Pennsylvania, one each in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and the Lehigh Valley. In particular, watch the Lehigh Valley race between incumbent Democratic Rep. Susan Wild and Republican challenger Lisa Scheller, who runs a family-owned manufacturing business. I held the seat for 14 years and it is among the most competitive swing districts in the country. CNN’s John King produced an excellent report on the Lehigh Valley’s Northampton County, a key national bellwether that may determine the fate of the statewide races and control of Congress.

Schumer expressed concern over the prospects of Democrats in Georgia in the last weeks before the election, but he was still hopeful about the upcoming election in Pennsylvania.

He has kept the president at arm’s length because of inflation concerns and Biden’s unpopularity. Instead, former President Barack Obama has been Democrats’ choice to amp up Georgia voters – and deliver a harsh case against Walker.

Schumer said that the debate between Fetterman and Oz did not hurt the state of Pennsylvania.

The overheard comments came during a conversation among Schumer, President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on the tarmac of Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. In his closing message, Biden painted Republicans as a threat to Americans pocketbooks and spoke in the state Thursday.

Mike Pence: Picking Up the (Republican) Electoral Scenario After Fetterman’s Disturbation

Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Democrats are fighting to hold onto their narrow majority in the 50-50 Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris has the tie-breaking vote. Both Georgia, which Democrats are defending, and Pennsylvania, which represents their best opportunity to flip a seat, are critical to that mission.

The Democratic leader said his party was “picking up steam” in Nevada, where Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is among the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.

Most polling shows Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, with a modest lead over Walker in the final stretch of the campaign.

Fetterman said that Oz’s comment showed what he actually believes about abortion, and that the clown can’t afford a vote on the issue.

But while Democrats immediately seized on Oz’s comments in their paid advertising, most of the post-debate attention was focused on the effects of Fetterman’s stroke.

“We wanted to be and thought it was important to be there. The Democrat told the senator that they showed up. I always got back up even when I was knocked down. And, to me, that’s really at the essence of our campaign, is that we’re running for any Pennsylvanian that ever got knocked down that has to get back up. It is really what we are running on.

For the second time in less than two years, the Peach State, which elected two Democratic senators in the last election cycle, is home to a contest that has gripped both national parties and potentially holds the key to the fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The Republicans currently have half a chance of being in the majority in the Senate because Vice President Harris is casting a decisive vote. That reality, coupled with headwinds – in the form of economic angst and Biden’s low approval ratings – familiar to Democrats across the country, has helped coalesce Republicans behind Walker.

Underscoring his party’s mix of ambivalence and political practicality, former Vice President Mike Pence, after not mentioning Walker during his remarks at a rally in Cumming, Georgia, on Tuesday for GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, told reporters he is “supporting the whole (Republican) ticket here in Georgia.”

The Rise and Fall of the United States: A Look at Warnock, Walker, and the U.S. at a Time to Seek Justice

Warnock, meanwhile, initially sought to steer clear of directly addressing the controversy. But late last month, he launched a television ad titled “Hypocrite.”

He has focused on his work to expand access to health care and his record in the Senate in order to woo undecided voters and moderates.

He says in an ad that he will work with anyone if it is to help Georgia.

“There is very little evidence that he has taken any interest, bothered to learn anything about or displayed any kind of inclination towards public service or volunteer work or helping people in anyway,” Obama said of Walker at a rally for Warnock last week in College Park.

Walker’s campaign has been very focused on rhetoric about culture war, inflation and crime as well as criticism of Biden and his policies.

Walker told non-politicians that he wanted them to think about the damage Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock have done to the country.

If you want to receive this weekly column as a newsletter, you should sign up. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

The Ukraine war is a classic VUCA moment. There is a general election Tuesday in the US. The vote for all the seats in the House and more than a third in the Senate is volatile, uncertain, complex and potentially, ambiguous.

Democrats feel that the warnings about the future of democracy are justified. Dean Obeidallah wrote that they were all aware of inflation but that the democracy could be lost at any time. He cited the “Washington Post’s recent reporting that a majority of the GOP nominees on the ballot his year for the House, Senate and statewide office have denied or questioned the results of the 2020 election. We have never seen anything like this in our lifetimes – if ever in the history of the United States.”

President Barack Obama talked about inflation in his campaign speech, while Republicans were running ads about it. But, in Dean Obeidallah’s view, Obama had a more effective message for turning out Democrats.

“Battles over inflation — what’s the cause, who is to blame, what is there to do — get to basic fights over who should have what. Should corporations make more money, should workers make better money and should consumers shoulder the cost of both?

Rising energy prices are “being felt particularly by lower-income households and workers,” wrote Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.

He warned of an unpleasant recession that was going to be very painful. The reason: the “unusually rapid pace of monetary policy tightening” by the Federal Reserve Bank, which this week hiked interest rates by three quarters of a point for the fourth time in a row. He argued that higher interest rates are putting a lot of pressure on companies to cut staff. The Fed is raising its policy stance in the context of a troubled world economy and high inflation. The leaders of the Fed signaled that they might slow the pace of rate hikes.

CNN’s My Election: Midterms Are Vuca Elections Are Voting Column Galant with a Free CNN Account

Obama asked the perfect question for voters: Who will fight for your freedom? The former President pointed to threats to reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and other issues as reasons for the Democratic Party to support them.

The Washington Post wrote that having Obama make a closing argument might not be a good idea. The record of helping Democrats is less than stellar. More House, Senate, state legislative and governors’ seats were lost by Obama than any other president in the history of the United States. It is not surprising that many Democrats don’t want Biden to join them on the campaign trail. But Obama may not be the savior they are hoping for. To the contrary, based on this disastrous record, he may be electoral kryptonite.”

A note to our readers: On Tuesday, pivotal races will decide who controls the House, Senate and dozens of governorships across the country. CNN’s My Election tool allows you to follow the contests that matter to you and build a custom dashboard. You can create your free CNN account by logging in.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

Why did Paul Pelosi and Michael Fanone Learn to Leave the Senate, or if the U.S. Senate is on the War?

The discussion about why so many Americans do not know about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol often comes to mind, according to Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police officer. In other words, most Americans just don’t seem to care. An overt attempt to end our democracy? Meh…”

Somehow I doubt that the attack on Paul Pelosi will be a turning point. We are no longer talking about isolated incidents or seeing universal condemnation of violence by our leaders. The husband of the woman who is third in line to the US presidency was attacked in his own home for political reasons and the right-wing media and some Republicans were happy about it.

Over 70% of the states have some initiative up for a vote. Joshua A Douglas wrote that democracy is on the ballot. “Not only do we have candidates who have questioned the 2020 election or refuse to say they will accept defeat this year, but numerous states and localities also will vote on measures to change how elections are run or who may vote in them.”

Trump is expected to announce a comeback bid for the White House on Tuesday but some Republicans in the House and Senate did not appear ready for a repeat.

The GOP is a strongly united party. It can’t shake the unity. The “never Trump” contingent failed to become the dominant force that it was meant to be. Indeed, officials such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney were purged from the party.”

“If Republicans do well next week, possibly retaking control of the House and Senate, members of the party will surely feel confident about amping up their culture wars and economic talking points going into 2024. And given the number of election-denying candidates in the midterms, a strong showing will likely create the tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump.”

Zelizer wrote that Trump himself will feel confident. “Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure. … It will be harder to prosecute Trump after he becomes a candidate. Trump is sure to tell us that any investigation is simply a political witch hunt meant to take him out of the running.

What Has Musk Done Recently to End the Culture of Twitter? An Opinion Column Galant on Musk & the Real Issues of Social Media

“All this has made West’s almost casual slurring of Jews all the more appalling. A cultural icon decided to hang the live wire around his neck and run it up his fame by waving it around, because there is a scary electrical charge in the air.

Musk laid off a large portion of the workforce and spread misinformation when he took control of the social networking site.

“Musk is making the remarkable power that US tech executives hold over our lives, from geopolitics to the health of democracy, painfully tangible to all,” wrote Marietje Schaake in the Financial Times.

The number of racist and neo-Nazi posts exploded on the site after the sale was confirmed. The accounts linked to Russian and Chinese state media requested removal of the labels that indicated how much was removed. Speculation about whether Musk would reverse the account ban for extremists, conspiracy theorists or Donald Trump himself was rife.”

Musk “has placed no limits on his own speech,” wrote former advertising executive Rob Norman in the New York Times, “and, under his ownership, seems likely to enable the inflammatory, provocative and sometimes verifiably untrue speech of others.”

“I know from having represented the world’s biggest buyer of advertising space that advertisers worry about these things a lot. If advertisers worry so much they will flee, costing the company most of its current revenue. Without that revenue, Twitter could be a calamitous acquisition for Mr. Musk, and the very future of the platform could be at risk.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

Ms. Martha Hickson, the worst year of her career: moving America’s schools forward through the lens of CNN Opinion Column Galant

The worst year of her career was 2014–2018, which was the best year of Martha’s career. Protesters showed up at the school board meeting and protested against two books, a memoir by Maia kobe and a novel by Jonathan evison. They put together a bunch of sentences from the book, while showing off some images from the other book.

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. The protesters felt that it was a plan to lure kids to degradation.

The real sucker punch came when a protester branded me a paedo, pornographer and child molester. After a successful career, with retirement on the horizon, to be cast as a villain was heartbreaking.”

“Even worse was the response from my employer – crickets. The board sat in silence that night, and for the next five months refused to utter a word in my defense.”

Hickson’s piece was the concluding personal essay in CNN Opinion’s series on midterm issues, “America’s Future Starts Now.” A group of education experts weighed in on how to move America’s schools forward.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

The Tom Brady-Bündchen Divorce: Inspiral and Fighting in a Fascinating and Frustrated Family Dynamic

Elections in Latin America and the Middle East brought back familiar faces. In Brazil, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva “posted a stunning political comeback,” beating the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, Arick Wierson wrote.

“Not since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s have Brazilians been faced with two more starkly contrasting candidates, each with diametrically opposing political outlooks for the country,” Wierson wrote. Some of the people who voted did not buy into either of the visions for the country.

In Israel, last week’s election put former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the cusp of returning to power, likely in position to form a right-wing governing coalition.

Likud is the most stable of Israel’s political parties. Israel is now shaped by the right wing more than at any point in its history, and it’s Prime Minister Netanyahu who’s in charge.

NFL quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen are divorcing, a development that is hardly unusual in the world of celebrity power couples. Yet there’s enormous public interest in the split, Jill Filipovic noted. The “fascination with the Brady-Bündchen divorce comes from the fact that this couple’s split hits a perfect celebrity sweet spot: These are two people who are absolutely nothing like us, but who nonetheless seem to be splitting up over a familiar gender dynamic that is imminently relatable.”

After years of sacrificing so that he could find a way to thrive professionally, Brady wants to spend more time with their family, according to comments made by Bndchen.

This is “a familiar and frustrating” dynamic: “The woman who steps back to care for children and make sure her husband succeeds – and the husband who doesn’t quite seem to appreciate that sacrifice and continues to push professionally far past when he needs to, at the expense of his family.”

An exclusive CNN interview with Kevin McCarthy – presidents in Ohio’s congressional race have a defining moment for the nation – but not for their party affiliation

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican who is believed to be the next House speaker, promised to tackle inflation, border security and rising crime in an exclusive interview with CNN. He promised broad investigations against the Biden administration on Afghanistan, the origins of the Covid-19 STD and how the administration has dealt with parents and school board meetings. And he didn’t rule out an eventual push to impeach Biden.

In a sign of the critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats, four presidents – Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – all took to the campaign trail over the weekend.

Trump, who has been in contact with some of the Republicans involved in Ohio’s US Senate race, will end his campaign for the White House with a rally for the nominee on Monday. Voters would “elect an incredible slate of trueMAGA warriors to Congress” in the speech that Donald Trump gave for Marco Rubio on Sunday, the president predicted.

Biden, who spent Saturday getting out the vote in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race with Obama, warned that the nation’s core values are in peril from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.

“Democracy is literally on the ballot. This is a defining moment for the nation. We have to speak with one voice no matter what party we’re in. Biden said that there was no place in America for political violence.

The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. He will be in a liberal bastion, but not trying to boost an elected official in an election that has turned into a referendum on his reputation and low approval ratings.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/election-eve-campaigning/index.html

The First Conflicts of 2024 GOP Nominating: The Case of Ron DeSanciminox and Ronna McDaniel

Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party would win both the House and the Senate and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic anxiety among Americans with his repeated warnings about democracy.

But the president warned in a speech in Pittsburgh on Saturday night alongside Obama that Republican concern over the economy was a ruse and claimed that the GOP would cut Social Security and Medicare if they won majorities.

“Look, they’re all about the wealthier getting wealthy. And the wealthier staying wealthy. The middle class gets stiffed. The poor get poorer under their policy,” Biden said.

On Sunday, a staffer at the headquarters of the pro-Trump nominee in the Arizona governor’s race opened a letter that contained suspicious white powder. The incident was condemned by Lake’s opponent, currently the Secretary of State in Arizona.

The first major clashes of the 2024 GOP nominating contest, meanwhile, broke out in Florida with Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding dueling rallies Sunday night. The man who could prove the toughest opponent for the ex-president’s White House bid is now known as Ron DeSanctimonious.

The Florida governor turned his ire on Biden after he called Crist a donkey, and then took credit for bucking Washington officials during the swine flu epidemic.

Trump kept teasing a presidential run despite not repeating his mockery on Sunday, but he did just that at the rally in support of sanders. In another sign the next presidential race is stirring, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has long eyed higher office, announced he would not join the Republican primary.

Former President Bill Clinton was also called into action on Saturday, stumping for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn. The Empire state should be safe territory for his party but Hochul’s closer-than-expected reelection race against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin underscores the toughness of the national environment for Democrats.

Your life is on the line, even if the average election rally is just whoop dee doo do vote for me. Clinton said for young people in the audience, life is on the line.

Biden has not been able to speak to Americans wanting a return to normal, or to get across to them the pain of rising prices in an inflation explosion that his White House once branded “transitory.”

The two issues were less critical in New York. There was no danger that the Democratic Legislature would overturn abortion rights. No movement emerged in 2020 to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in New York, and there is little indication that anyone feared Mr. Zeldin might do so. As a result, Republicans focused the campaign on crime. And it paid off.

There are exceptions, like the strength of the Democrats in Colorado or the Republicans in Texas. Most of the party’s most impressive showing fit in well.

In Florida, the Republican landslide happened where the stop-the-steal movement did not seek to overturn the election result and where Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to go further than a 15-week abortion ban. In Kansas and Michigan, where abortion referendums were on the ballot in different places, Democrats swept the most competitive House districts.

It remains uncertain which party will control the Senate or the House of Representatives next year, with votes still being counted and key races too early to call. The “red wave” that the Republicans wanted did not happen in 2022.

Former President Donald Trump: Trump was on voters’ minds nearly as much as the incumbent. About 30% of voters intended to express opposition to him, a few points below the one-third who said they were opposing Biden.

The strength of individual candidates may have helped Democrats win over some voters who were against the Democratic president. In New Hampshire, for instance, Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan kept her seat by winning nearly all voters who approved of Biden, as well as roughly one-fifth of those who disapproved.

CNN In-person Interviews with Voters During the First Day of the Campaign to End the Class War in the U.S. Senate

CNN’s exit polls are based on in-person interviews with voters and in-person interviews with voters on Election Day. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. Read more here.

The idea that Democrats had made inroads with white working-class voters thanks to Mr. Fetterman was rejected by a former chairman of the state Republican Party. Mr. Gleason said Dr. Oz lost as a result of Mr. Fetterman’s class-war campaign.

Mr. Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier this year, embraced Biden even though he did not perform well in the debate and didn’t release any of his medical records. He is an odd looking guy wearing shorts and a hoodie. I thought this was going to be easy.

Mr. Fetterman, who campaigned aggressively for more than a year in the rural counties before his stroke under the banner “every county, every vote,” may have inspired inconsistent voters who still leaned Democratic to turn out for him.

Republican senators who returned to the Capitol on Monday evening for the first time since Election Day were flummoxed by how the party squandered its opportunity.

Senate GOP leaders are pressing ahead with a mid-week vote to confirm their control of the conference, even though some conservatives are pushing for changes at the top.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told CNN’s Manu Raju that he has not yet decided whether he will challenge Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate Republican leader. For months, McConnell and Scott warred over how the party should try to win the Senate.

“There’s no one single factor,” said Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, ticking off the growing pains of “first-time candidates,” a “confusing political environment” and “a combination of issues.”

“We’re going to have a very robust and candid conversation over the course of the next couple of days,” Thune said. There is no question that we did not achieve expectations in this election.

“I think looking forward is always a better campaign strategy,” Capito said. “Looking back to 2020 obviously didn’t work out. So I think we need to look forward. That’s what our candidates should, and wanted, to do, and some of them just fell short.”

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman declined to blame Trump for the GOP’s underwhelming performance, stressing the need for “better candidate recruitment” and “sticking with the issues.”

“The results were disappointing, but in the end, we basically got Republican control of the House,” Cornyn said. “I think that may be the cause of the Democrats’ excitement because they said it could have been so much worse.”

“I don’t know why the Biden administration considers that a victory,” Cornyn added. Being shot at and missed is just like the old saying, there’s nothing so exhilarating.

What do we want to see in the next ten years? The reality is in your thoughts: If you can’t vote now, you won’t have to fight

CNN has not yet projected that the Republicans will take the House, but Republicans appear on track to hold a narrow majority, which would flip the chamber.

“The former president is going to do whatever he wants to do, and I don’t think he’s going to listen to what my thoughts are on it,” South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said. “I want someone who is going to unite our party. That is the way we win elections.

Asked if he wants Trump to be the 2024 GOP nominee, Idaho GOP Rep. Mike Simpson told CNN, “Let’s see who runs. I don’t think it’s good for the party.

Romney voted to remove him from office because he thought Trump was a bad leader.

“I think he’s been on the mountain too long,” added Romney. “We’ve lost three races with him. And I’d like to see someone from the bench, come up and take his place and lead our party and help lead the country.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/politics/republican-reaction-losing-senate/index.html

The Future of Work: Why It’s Not Yours to Be! After the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court, Michelle Thune was Right: What will we do next?

Along with the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Simpson said one of the reasons why some Republicans underperformed was their connection to the former president. Simpson thinks some candidates were too close to Trump.

Thune said the party now needs to set its sights on winning the Georgia Senate runoff election, even as Democrats have already clinched the majority in the chamber.

“There’s a huge difference, as you all know, between a 50-50 Senate and 51, so we really need that seat and that’s where all our efforts ought to be devoted,” he said.

“With our democracy at stake, with our fundamental liberties on the line, and with a clear choice between moving America forward or holding it back, the American people spoke loud and clear: Democrats will retain the majority in the Senate,” Schumer said.

The founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms is Reshma Saujani. She wrote “Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (And Why It’s Different Than You Think)”. The views expressed here are of hers, not of anyone else. Read more opinion on CNN.

As pundits and economists began to predict a red wave, Michigan Gov. GretchenWhitmer put a stake in the ground.

“We have this tendency to say, Covid-19 was a she-cession… we’ve got to get women back in the workplace,’” the governor explained. “But you know how you do that? You empower women. You don’t take our ability to make the most important economic decision we make in our lifetimes away from us.”

The price of parenting is the ultimate economic issue and only one party is doing something about it, so Democrats would be wise to run on it in future elections.

Clearly, the message hit home for voters: Whitmer won in a landslide against an anti-abortion extremist, racking up double-digit margins in a state that famously swung red back in 2016. In Michigan, 45% of voters ranked abortion as their top issue, which is much higher than the 25% who listed inflation as their top issue.

The Costs of Parenting and Child Care: A Pre-Constitutional Perspective on Biden, Bruni, and the Future of the United States

Every day, the budget is being killed by additional costs. Child care is increasing at a faster rate than inflation. In fact, it’s now the norm for pre-school to cost more than an in-state public university degree, contributing to a staggering 40% of parents going into debt well before their children have moved into a dorm.

Exploding health care costs are the reason for two-thirds of bankruptcies, and American hospital prices are more expensive than other countries. Only 120 other countries now have paid parental leave programs at the national level, but who does not?

The most fundamental financial issue is whether or not to become one in the first place for Black women, and as Whitmer argued, this is an important issue for parents. It’s now more expensive to raise a child than ever before, according to an analysis by a Washington DC think tank. While higher gas prices might hurt, they pale in comparison to the cost of caring for a child the Supreme Court forced you to have.

Many Democrats, especially at a local level, were given a second chance this election: to put paid leave back on the table, to lower the cost of child care and pay child care workers their due, to finally increase access to quality education and health care, and to codify women’s rights to control their own bodies. These policies will ease parents financial stresses more than the Republican corporate tax breaks will ever accomplish, and the history shows that if candidates articulate the value of these policies, their numbers will improve.

These candidates offer a blueprint for a better nation – and, looking ahead to 2024, Democrats would be wise to take them and their strategy seriously. They’ve shown us a future where leaders talk about these policies as the pocketbook issues they are and prove they can pass them on behalf of the people.

Most importantly, it’s a world in which parents across the political spectrum can be sure that the party they elected is, finally, giving us a chance, too.

Biden’s speech showed how good a liberal agenda can sound to non-liberals when it’s presented by a guy like that. People always looked down on Biden as a presidential candidate because he reminded them of somebody’s chatty great-uncle. A great uncle who wants to put a cap on drug prices is what we are looking for.

Frank Bruni had a great line on this point in his newsletter last week. He wrote that Donald Trump would need noise-canceling headphones. For Biden, hearing aids. The age question is going to be more acute for Biden. The people will remember some of his misstatements, like calling Chuck Schumer the Senate minority leader.

Gail: So sorry to hear he was briefly hospitalized — and to learn, in a story by our newsroom colleague Annie Karni, that his long-term physical problems have made it difficult for him to deal with his work. The man who is recovering from a serious stroke, was not a good choice to join the United States Senate.