Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) blamed Democrats on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday after moderate GOP Rep. Peter Meijer (Mich.) was defeated in his primary election by a Trump-endorsed candidate.
Meijer, who voted to impeach former President Trump after the 2021 Capitol attack, lost to Trump-backed challenger John Gibbs on Tuesday, after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads supporting Gibbs.
Meijer’s race was among a number of primaries in which the Democratic campaign arms spent money on Trump-backed candidates, a strategy seemingly aiming to make it easier for Democrats to win general elections.
“I mean, the DCCC needs to be ashamed of themselves,” Kinzinger said.
“If Peter’s opponent wins and goes on in November to win, the Democrats own that. Congratulations,” he continued. “Here’s the thing, don’t keep coming to me asking where are all the good Republicans that defend democracy and then take your donors’ money to spend half a million dollars promoting one of the worst election deniers that’s out there.”
Although some Democrats have spoken out against the DCCC’s strategy, top Democratic officials such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have come out in favor of the tactic.
“The political decisions that are made out there are made in furtherance of our winning the election,” Pelosi said last week, “because we think the contrast between Democrats and Republicans — as they are now — is so drastic that we have to win. ”
Meijer’s defeat is another win for Trump, who has made a midterm priority out of getting Republicans out of office who publicly opposed him following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Meijer said Democrats disregarded “certain moral limits” in politics when backing his opponent.
“If successful, Republican voters will be blamed if any of these candidates are ultimately elected, but there is no doubt Democrats’ fingerprints will be on the weapon,” Meijer said in an essay posted online Monday.
President Biden on Wednesday is continuing to test positive for the coronavirus and therefore will maintain his “strict isolation measures,” the White House’s doctor says.
Kevin O’Connor said in a letter that Biden, who finished a light workout this morning, feels well yet is “still experiencing an occasional cough, but less frequently than yesterday.
“He remains fever-free and in good spirits. His temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation remain entirely normal,” O’Connor added. “His lungs remain clear.”
“Given his rebound positivity which we reported Saturday, we continued daily monitoring. This morning, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing remained positive,” the doctor also said.
BIDEN SHARES VIDEO AFTER TESTING POSITIVE FOR COVID AGAIN
President Biden speaks from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House Monday, Aug. 1, in Washington. (Jim Watson/Pool via AP)
Biden will remain isolating and will “conduct the business of the American people from the Executive Residence,” according to O’Connor.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Read the letter here:
O’Connor said last week that Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, and Friday morning, but tested positive on Saturday morning by an antigen test.
BIDEN ‘PLAYED TOO LOOSE’ WITH CDC’S MASK GUIDANCE AFTER NEGATIVE COVID TEST, DOCTOR SAYS: ‘NOT A GOOD LOOK’
President Biden virtually attends a meeting with his economic team in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington on Friday, July 22. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
The president first tested positive for the coronavirus on July 21.
His lawyer, Amanda Bevins, appeared on his behalf at an arraignment in Napa County Superior Court in California and entered a plea of not guilty to the charges, which were brought after Pelosi was arrested on May 28 after having been involved in a nighttime collision.
Pelosi, who did not appear in court on Wednesday, will remain free on his own recognizance and is due back in court on August 23.
The 82-year-old had been attempting to cross SR-29 in late May when his 2021 Porsche was hit by a 2014 Jeep traveling northbound on the road, according to a collision report from the California Highway Patrol. The vehicles “sustained major collision damage,” according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint noted that Pelosi was operating his vehicle “while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and a drug and under their combined influence.” Authorities said in the complaint that when asked for ID at the scene, Pelosi handed the officers both his license from him and an “11-99 Foundation” card. The foundation is the California Highway Patrol charity, which “provides emergency assistance to California Highway Patrol employees and scholarships to their children,” according to its website.
The punishment for the misdemeanor charges “includes up to five years of probation, a minimum of five days in jail, installation of an ignition interlock device, fines and fees, completion of a court ordered drinking driver class and other terms, according to a release from the Napa County District Attorney’s Office.
Pelosi completed sobriety tests at the time of the incident “showing signs of impairment,” according to a criminal complaint. The criminal complaint noted that California Highway Patrol determined Pelosi “was the proximate cause of the collision.”
A native of San Francisco, he has been married to Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, since 1963. The two have five children.
Missy Crovetti panicked Thursday when she was forwarded a photo of her nearly 100-year-old grandma sitting on her bed, partially submerged in the floodwaters that were ravaging eastern Kentucky.
The picture showed Mae Amburgey — or “MomMae,” as Crovetti calls her — wearing capri pants and a turquoise sweater that was already halfway soaked. Amburgey had clasped her hands around her right knee; the lower part of her legs disappeared into the muck. Around her de ella: an overturned dresser, artwork made by her grandson de ella, a pillow topped with one of her shoes and a box of Little Debbie Nutty Buddy bars.
From her home in Green Oaks, Ill., Crovetti, 52, immediately tried calling her grandma but couldn’t get through. She also tried her brother de ella, who’d taken the photo, and her uncle de ella — both of whom were at her grandmother’s house de ella. They didn’t answer, either. She didn’t know whether they were still in the house or whether they’d escaped.
More than 500 miles away, Crovetti did the only thing she could think of to help: She uploaded the photo to Facebook with a plea in the hope that her SOS might reach someone in Letcher County, Ky., who could help her grandmother, who’s either 97 or 98, depending on which family Bible you consult.
“My grandmother, Uncle and Brother are trapped in her house across from the high school if anyone has posted a boat around that area, the water is about 4 feet deep in the house,” she.
She published the post at 1:26 pm and hoped it would be enough.
“I was desperate,” she said.
Amburgey, her son and her grandson were but three of thousands of Kentuckians forced to grapple with the effects of torrential rains that pounded the eastern part of the state late last week. Between 14 and 16 inches of rain hit in a four-day period, transforming idyllic streams and creeks into raging rivers, according to the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Ky. On Tuesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said the disaster had killed at least 37 people, displaced hundreds and inflicted “hundreds of millions of dollars” in damage, according to the Associated Press and a YouTube video of the governor. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Beshear warned that as the floods recede, “we’re going to be finding bodies for weeks.”
Death toll for Kentucky floods climbs to 28, with more storms coming
Randy Polly, who was across the street from Amburgey’s house during Thursday’s flooding, told The Washington Post he watched floodwaters overtake and kill two people “right in front of me” early Thursday. When he called 911, a dispatcher told him that, even if they weren’t scrambling to field more than 300 calls, rescue workers wouldn’t be able to get to them until the waters receded.
Scads of homes have since been damaged in and around the area, and people are desperate for basic supplies. “This is a war zone,” Polly said.
Before she knew of any flooding, Crovetti woke up last Thursday and, knowing that forecasters had predicted extremes, checked the weather to see whether they’d been right. But not in her home state of Kentucky. Because her son de ella attends school in Seattle, which was under the threat of a heat wave, she checked the weather for the Pacific Northwest. When Crovetti did, she happened to spot a flood warning for her home state of Kentucky. As she probed further, she realized her relatives in Ermine might be in danger.
Photos posted by her Facebook friends confirmed her hunch. The floodwaters seemed to rise with each photo she saw. Then she started to recognize landmarks in some of the photos and knew that if those places had flooded, her grandmother’s house would have, too. That’s when she knew “my family was in trouble.”
Shortly after, an acquaintance forwarded the photo that her brother, Gregory, had taken of their grandmother.
Although Crovetti couldn’t reach anyone by phone, Polly said a friendly stranger soon came to the family’s aid. Initially, the man couldn’t reach Amburgey’s house because of the floodwaters, which Polly estimated were 20 feet high at one point. But in a second effort, he went upstream and used the current to drift toward the home. After breaking a window, he was able to help Amburgey and the two male relatives out of the house.
Polly, 49, captured the rescue on video and then watched as the four-person party drifted away.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see them again,” Polly told The Post.
Dramatic video captures nearly 100-year-old Mae Amburgey being rescued out of her flooded home in Whitesburg, Ky., on July 28. (Video: Randy Polly)
About 45 minutes after Crovetti posted the SOS call on Facebook, a relative sent another photo of her grandmother, this time hooked up to oxygen in a hospital. She later learned that her Uncle Larry had been swept away from the other three in their party and had clung to a tree until the anonymous rescuer returned to save him, too. Crovetti said she doesn’t know who the man is and referred to him as “the good Samaritan” and her grandmother’s “guardian angel.”
But it’s not a happy ending yet, she said. Her grandmother de ella got pneumonia and suffered a cut to her leg de ella, part of which she has gotten infected.
“We just hope she pulls through,” Crovetti said. “She’s got a long road in front of her.”
So does Kentucky, she added.
Crovetti and Polly both highlighted that thousands in eastern Kentucky are suffering through flooding of biblical proportions. Hundreds of homes have been damaged in the Ermine area alone, Polly said. People need basic supplies such as cleaning products and fresh water.
“We need help so bad,” Polly said. “People have no idea what’s going on here.”
After a week of anger and criticism from veterans groups and advocates, including the comedian Jon Stewart, Senate Republicans finally agreed to pass a bill that expands healthcare and benefits to veterans exposed to toxins.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little,” said Stewart, who joined veterans to push for the bill. “I hope we learned a lesson.”
Known as the Pact Act, the bill passed in the Senate on Tuesday night in an 86-11 vote.
It will provide assistance to veterans who were exposed to harmful chemicals during their service, such as Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, or toxins from pits used to burn military waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Department of Defense estimates that about 3.5 million service members could have been exposed to burn pits in the Middle East. Such chemicals can cause respiratory illnesses and cancer to those exposed, medical experts said.
Currently veterans have had to prove that illnesses were connected to their service, and the Department of Veterans Affairs did not consider exposure to toxins a service-related condition. The department has denied about 75% of veterans’ burn pit claims.
The Pact Act passed the House last month and had support from a majority of Republican senators until last week, when a coalition of them held up the bill’s passage. The senators said they no longer supported the bill after Democrats announced they reached a deal on a better tax and climate bill on Wednesday.
Veteran advocates sharply denounced the Republicans’ U-turn. Stewart called them “stab-vets-in-the-back senators.” Protests erupted outside the Capitol.
On Tuesday night, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, announced that he and his Republican counterpart, the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, had reached a deal on the bill. At a news conference, McConnell said Republicans’ objections were part of the “legislative process”.
“These kind of back and forths happen all the time in the legislative process, you’ve observed that over the years,” he said. “I think in the end, the veterans service organizations will be pleased with the final result.”
Joe Biden praised the bill’s passage, saying: “We should all take pride at this moment.” In his most recent State of the Union address earlier this year, the US president mentioned that his son de him Beau, who served a year-long tour of Iraq and later died of brain cancer, could have been a victim of burn pit toxins.
“The Pact Act will be the biggest expansion of [veterans affairs] healthcare in decades,” Biden tweeted. “We’ll never be able to repay the debt we owe to those who have worn the uniform, but today, Congress delivered on a promise to our veterans and their families.”
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones testified Wednesday that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it was “100% real.”
Speaking a day after the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the 2012 attack testified about the suffering, death threats and harassment they’ve endured Because of what Jones has trumpeted on his media platforms, the Infowars host told a Texas courtroom that he definitely thinks the attack happened.
“Especially since I’ve met the parents. It’s 100% real,” Jones said at his trial to determine how much he and his media company, Free Speech Systems, owe for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. Their son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 students and six educators who were killed in the attack in Newtown, Connecticut, which was the deadliest school shooting in American history.
But Heslin and Lewis said Tuesday that an apology wouldn’t suffice and that Jones needed to be held accountable for repeatedly spreading falsehoods about the attack. They are seeking at least $150 million.
Closing arguments are expected to begin later Wednesday after more testimony from Jones, who has portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights.
Jones is the only person testifying in his own defense. His attorney asked him if he now understands it was “absolutely irresponsible” to push the false claims that the massacre didn’t happen and no one died.
Jones said he does, but added, “They (the media) won’t let me take it back.”
He also complained that he’s been “typecast as someone that runs around talking about Sandy Hook, makes money off Sandy Hook, is obsessed by Sandy Hook.”
Jones’ testimony came a day after Heslin and Lewis told the courtroom in Austin, where Jones and his companies are based, that Jones and the false hoax claims he and Infowars pushed made their lives a “living hell” of death threats, online abuse and harassment.
They led a day of charged testimony Tuesday that included the judge scolding the bombastic Jones for not being truthful with some of what he said under oath.
In a gripping exchange, Lewis spoke directly to Jones, who was sitting about 10 feet away. Earlier that day, Jones was on his broadcast program telling his audience that Heslin is “slow” and being manipulated by bad people.
“I am a mother first and foremost and I know you are a father. My son existed,” Lewis said to Jones. “I am not deep state … I know you know that … And yet you’re going to leave this courthouse and say it again on your show.”
At one point, Lewis asked Jones: “Do you think I’m an actor?”
“No, I don’t think you’re an actor,” Jones responded before the judge admonished him to be quiet until called to testify.
Heslin and Lewis are among several Sandy Hook families who have filed several lawsuits alleging that the Sandy Hook hoax claims pushed by Jones have led to years of abuse by him and his followers.
Heslin and Lewis both said they fear for their lives and have been confronted by strangers at home and on the street. Heslin said his home and car had been shot at. The jury heard a death threat sent via telephone message to another Sandy Hook family.
“I can’t even describe the last nine and a half years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones,” Heslin said.
Scarlett Lewis also described threatening emails that seemed to have uncovered deep details of her personal life.
“It’s fear for your life,” Scarlett Lewis said. “You don’t know what they were going to do.”
Heslin said he didn’t know if the Sandy Hook hoax conspiracy theory originated with Jones, but it was Jones who “lit the match and started the fire” with an online platform and broadcast that reached millions worldwide.
“What was said about me and Sandy Hook itself resonates around the world,” Heslin said. “As time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was.”
Jones skipped Heslin’s Tuesday morning testimony while he was on his show — a move Heslin dismissed as “cowardly” — but arrived in the courtroom for part of Scarlett Lewis’ testimony. He was accompanied by several private security guards.
“Today is very important to me and it’s been a long time coming… to face Alex Jones for what he said and did to me. To restore the honor and legacy of my son,” Heslin said when Jones wasn’t there.
Heslin told the jury about holding his son with a bullet hole through his head, even describing the extent of the damage to his son’s body. A key segment of the case is a 2017 Infowars broadcast that said Heslin did not hold his son.
The jury was shown a school picture of a smiling Jesse taken two weeks before he was killed. The parents didn’t receive the photo until after the shooting. They described how Jesse was known for telling classmates to “run!” which likely saved lives.
An apology from Jones wouldn’t be good enough, the parents said.
“Alex started this fight,” Heslin said, “and I’ll finish this fight.”
Jones later took the stand and was initially combative with the judge, who had asked him to answer his own attorney’s question. Jones testified he had long wanted to apologize to the plaintiffs.
Later, the judge sent the jury out of the room and strongly scolded Jones for telling the jury he had complied with pretrial evidence gathering even though he didn’t and that he is bankrupt, which has not been determined. The plaintiffs’ attorneys were furious about Jones mentioning he is bankrupt, which they worry will taint the jury’s decisions about damages.
“This is not your show,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told Jones. “Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath.”
Last September, the judge admonished Jones in her default judgment over his failure to turn over documents requested by the Sandy Hook families. A court in Connecticut issued a similar default judgment against Jones for the same reasons in a separate lawsuit brought by other Sandy Hook parents.
At stake in the trial is how much Jones will pay. The parents have asked the jury to award $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury will then consider whether Jones and his company will pay punitive damages.
Jones has already tried to protect Free Speech Systems financially. The company filed for federal bankruptcy protection last week. Sandy Hook families have separately sued Jones over his financial claims from him, arguing that the company is trying to protect millions owned by Jones and his family from him through shell entities.
___
Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.
___
For more of the AP’s coverage of school shootings: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings
A lawyer for Paul Pelosi, the multimillionaire husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appeared on his behalf in a Napa County, California, court for his arraignment on DUI charges Wednesday morning.
The attorney, Amanda Bevins, entered a plea of not guilty to both accounts on her client’s behalf before Napa County Superior Court Judge Monique Langhorne.
Pelosi’s 2021 Porsche and the other driver’s 2014 Jeep sustained “major collision damage” in a crash around 10:17 pm on May 28, and responding officers found Pelosi in his driver’s seat in his damaged car near the intersection of California Route 29 and Oakville Cross Road.
He faces two misdemeanor charges, DUI causing injury and driving with a blood alcohol level of .08% causing injury.
Aimee McLeod, a deputy district attorney in Napa County, appeared for the prosecution.
PAUL PELOSI ALLEGEDLY SLURRED SPEECH, HAD DRUG IN SYSTEM AND HANDED OVER POLICE PRIVILEGE CARD DURING DUI BUST
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and husband Paul Pelosi (Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images)
Pelosi will remain free on her own recognition and is due back in court on Aug. 23 at 9 am PT for a settlement conference.
The parties could discuss the possibility of a plea agreement, continue the case or prepare for trial, Bevins said.
If convicted, Pelosi could face up to five years of probation, a minimum of five days in jail and be ordered to install an ignition interlock device in her car, according to District Attorney Allison Haley’s office. Other punishments could include fines and fees and a court-ordered “drinking driver class.”
The arraignment comes a day after Pelosi’s wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rattled US-China relations with a trip to Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory. And it comes a week after he reports that he sold millions of dollars in Nvidia stock leading up to a House vote on a bill that would impact the industry.
A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi’s office noted that the shares had been sold at a loss.
“Mr. Pelosi bought options to buy stock in this company more than a year ago and exercised them on June 17, 2022,” the spokesperson, Drew Hammill, said in a statement. “As always, he does not discuss these matters with the Speaker until trades have been made and required disclosures must be prepared and filed.”
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S HUSBAND PAUL’S DUI TRIAL ‘RIGGED,’ BESET BY ‘DECK-STACKING’: JESSE WATTERS
On the night of the crash, Pelosi allegedly handed officers his driver’s license and an “11-99 Foundation” card when they asked for his ID, according to the documents. The 11-99 Foundation is a California Highway Patrol charity that supports officers and provides scholarships for their children.
Pelosi allegedly exhibited “signs of impairment” during field sobriety tests and officers “observed objective signs and symptoms of alcohol intoxication,” according to the documents.
Those allegedly included “red/watery” eyes.
“He was unsteady on his feet, his speech was slurred, and he had a strong odor of an alcohol beverage emanating from his breath,” the complaint alleges.
The other driver, identified only as John Doe, was standing outside an SUV, according to the documents.
Both of them declined medical treatment at the scene, but Doe on June 2 told Napa County prosecutors that he had begun suffering pain in his upper right arm, right shoulder and neck the day after the crash. He also complained of headaches and said it was difficult to lift things with his right arm, according to the documents.
PAUL PELOSI TO BE ARRAIGNED ON DUI CHARGES WEDNESDAY
Pelosi allegedly injured the other driver “while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and a drug and under their combined influence,” the first count in the two-charge complaint reads.
Investigators later determined he had a blood-alcohol content of .082%.
Pelosi’s attorney Bevins told Fox News Digital, “I believe that the drug reference is part of the statutory boilerplate language in the complaint.”
Previously, descriptions of property damage and injuries stemming from the crash had been withheld.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Records show Pelosi made bail the morning after the crash for a $5,000 sum.
Speaker Pelosi’s office has previously said it would not comment on the incident, which a spokesperson said happened while she was on the opposite side of the country.
Michael Ruiz is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @mikerreports
A leading House Democrat on Wednesday backtracked on comments she made Tuesday that she doubts President Joe Biden will renew his bid for the presidency in 2024 — a highly unusual break from the party’s standard-bearer.
The White House has repeatedly said Biden intends to run for reelection.
When asked during a debate if he should run again, New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who is currently seeking reelection for the Empire State’s 12th Congressional District, told debate moderators from NY1: “I don’t believe he’s running.”
Maloney is in a hotly contested primary, in part due to redistricting that pits her against another Capitol Hill veteran, Rep. Jerry Nadler. The pair face off on Aug. 23.
Nadler told debate moderators on Tuesday that it was “too early to say” if Biden would run again in 2024, adding that such speculation “doesn’t serve the purpose of the Democratic Party to deal with that until after the midterms.”
Maloney’s answer was quickly seized on by the Republican National Committee and circulated on social media.
Maloney is not a political novice. The chair of the House Oversight Committee has served in Congress for nearly 30 years, and her prognosis of Biden’s prospects are at odds with some others in the party: The Democratic National Committee and the White House — as well as congressional leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer — have aligned on another potential Biden-Kamala Harris ticket. The president previously told ABC News ‘David Muir that he would run as long as his health remained good.
Maloney tweaked her remarks somewhat Wednesday morning, tweeting that she would “absolutely support President Biden, if he decides to run for re-election.”
“Biden’s leadership securing historic investments for healthcare, climate & economic justice prove once again why he is the strong and effective leader we need right now,” she said.
Still, Maloney is not alone in her reservations: Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., recently told local media that he doesn’t believe Biden should seek a second term. “I think the country would be well-served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up,” Phillips said.
President Joe Biden listens during a meeting with journalists in the Oval Office at the White House, July 12, 2022.
Chris Kleponis/Pool via Getty Images
Later, in a statement to The Minnesota Star Tribune, he added: “Under no condition can we afford another four years of Donald Trump, and while Joe Biden was clearly the right candidate at the right time two years ago, it’s my hope that both major parties put forward new candidates of principle, civility, and integrity in 2024.”
Minnesota House colleague Angie Craig then cited Phillips this week when she said that there needs to be a “new generation of leadership.”
At 79, Biden is the oldest-ever serving president — breaking a record set by his predecessor, Donald Trump, now 76.
Biden last month defended his popularity among Democrats, telling ABC News that a New York Times/Siena College poll showing a majority of his party preferring another 2024 nominee also found that 92% of Democrats said they’d vote for him in another race with Trump .
And among all voters, the poll found, Biden would best Trump 44% to 41%.
Biden told ABC News in December that the prospect of such a rematch was appealing.
“You’re trying to tempt me now,” Biden told Muir then, laughing. “Why would I not run against Donald Trump for the nominee?” I have added. “That’ll increase the prospect of running.”
“This level of government overreach — literally interfering in the decisions a physician and patient make together — has resonated with people in Kansas,” she said. “It’s a scary moment to think that you or your loved one might be in a situation where it’s not up to you or your provider what care you can get and instead it’s up to the government and what they think you deserve.”
Turnout for the primary also soared above usual levels Tuesday, and in some counties was closer to the participation usually seen in a presidential election. The in-person early vote, which tends to favor Democrats, was also nearly 250% higher than the last primary midterm election in 2018, when both Democrats and Republicans had competitive governors’ races, while the number of mail-in ballots was more than double.
The “no” campaign also outperformed in fairly conservative areas — like in Shawnee County in the eastern part of the state — coming in several points ahead of President Joe Biden’s results there in 2020.
At abortion rights groups’ campaign watch party in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, supporters cheered, cried, jumped and hugged each other tightly as new waves of votes were counted in their favor. Teens with purple hair wearing cutoffs mingled with older men and women in suits in a hotel ballroom. One woman cradled a doll of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she watched the results.
“Abortion isn’t a partisan issue — that’s a trap people fall into,” Ashley All, the spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, told POLITICO. “That’s just not the way most Americans or most Kansans think about the issue.”
The results were also hailed by abortion rights groups around the country that see the defeat of the Kansas referendum as a blueprint for future efforts in cities and states across the country. The vote also countered the narrative that the abortion issue is a bigger motivator for conservative voters, and may signal a warning to Republican lawmakers across the country that the gnaws decision may generate considerable backlash over the coming months and years.
“Reproductive freedom is a winning issue, now and in November,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. “Anti-choice lawmakers take note: The voters have spoken, and they will turn out at the ballot box to oppose efforts to restrict reproductive freedom.”
The decision means abortion clinics in the state can continue to serve not only Kansans but also patients from Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and other states that have banned the procedure after gnaws fell, many of whom have traveled to Kansas in recent weeks. The anti-abortion campaign seized on this trend, warning in ads that the state would become an “abortion destination” like California if the amendment failed.
Value Them Both, the umbrella group of anti-abortion advocates who pushed for the amendment, called the decision a “temporary setback.”
“Our dedicated fight to value women and babies is far from over,” they said in a statement Tuesday night. “We will be back.”
The referendum’s result particularly shocked the state because the pro-amendment campaign had some structural advantages heading into Tuesday, and they were ahead in recent polls.
Not only is Kansas a solidly red state that twice voted for President Donald Trump, but also the supermajority Republican legislature decided to schedule the vote for the primary instead of the general election. Turnout is usually far lower in August and favors Republicans, who have more competitive primaries than Democrats in Kansas. And many college students, who trend more progressive, are away for the summer.
Student activists working to defeat the amendment said they were all more motivated by what they saw as an underhanded effort to suppress their votes.
“It was very intentional, and I think young people have taken note of that and have realized that there are political structures in place to put us down,” said Donovan Dillon, a University of Kansas sophomore who helped lead the country-western-themed Vote Neighbor campaign against the amendment. “When I reached out to friends and asked, ‘Do you want to come canvas this weekend?’ everyone’s been all hands on deck — even friends who haven’t been involved politically before.”
The “Value Them Both” amendment was rocket fuel for the usually sleepy primary election. Hundreds of volunteers from around the country converged on the state to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors. Both sides raised and spent millions of dollars on ads, mailers, phone banking and other outreach — much of it from the Catholic Church on the anti-abortion side and Planned Parenthood on the abortion rights side.
But while the state served as proxy war for the groups fighting over abortion rights nationally in a post-gnaws America, the campaigns also had a distinctly Kansas flavor.
Outside the state capital in Topeka on Saturday, people protesting against the amendment waved posters covered in sunflowers while speakers on the capitol steps invoked the state motto “Ad astra per aspera” — to the stars through adversity. Local businesses down the street showed Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz urging her fellow Kansans to vote no.
The final days leading up to the vote were also marked by tension and confusion.
Some lawn signs for the “Value Them Both” campaign had NO spray painted over them in black capital letters. Catholic churches — the main funders of the anti-abortion campaign — have also been vandalized, while abortion rights demonstrators have been threatened with arrest.
On Saturday, a group of anti-abortion advocates marched up and down the sidewalks of Lawrence — a progressive college town — yelling “Don’t kill babies” at passersby.
On Sunday, an 18-year-old anti-abortion canvasser who came from Texas to volunteer with the group Students for Life said she was physically assaulted by a resident while knocking on doors in the Kansas City suburb of Leawood. She filed a police report and posted a video that doesn’t show the incident itself but shows the resident yelling and giving her the finger afterward.
On Monday, several residents alerted the state’s ACLU chapter that they received a deceptive robotext from an unknown number suggesting that a “yes” vote would protect abortion access.
“Women in Kansas are losing their choice on reproductive rights,” the messages read, according to screenshots shared with POLITICO. “Voting YES on the amendment will give women a choice.”
Former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius received the texts and said in a statement that she was not surprised by the tactic.
“The anti-choice movement has been lying to the voters of Kansas for decades,” she said. “This act of desperation won’t stop the voters of Kansas from protecting their constitutional rights and freedom.”
Many voters told POLITICO the debate has also pitted family members against one another.
Asked about the “Vote Yes” sign in his front yard, Olathe resident David Schaffer said that it belonged to his daughter and that he vehemently disagrees.
“She can do what she wants. Ella she’s a grown adult, ”he said. “But I say, if we turn it over to the legislature, I don’t get no say anymore — none. And that’s what this is doing.”
One of his neighbors, Edianna Yantis, told POLITICO her “Vote Yes” was recently stolen from her front yard and she suspected her son, who had been trying to convince her to vote no.
“He said, ‘Mom, I don’t like abortion but this means they’re going to take all abortion away.’ I told him, ‘You need to do your research,’ but he says he has,” she said with a sad smile.
Ultimately, despite the state’s conservative leanings, voters saw the amendment as a bridge too far.
And while younger voters in the state lean more progressive, the defeat of the proposal was also fueled by older Kansans like Barbara Lawson, who remembers life before gnawsv. Wade.
When canvassers with Kansans for Constitutional Freedom came to her door on Monday to urge her to vote against the amendment, Lawson shared that she had a baby when she was 17 years old after being raped.
“I don’t know if I would have [had an abortion] because I had no choice — abortion was illegal. It was very hard,” she said. “Now I fear they’re going to restrict all abortions again and we’re going to be left back in the Dark Ages.”
Leading up to Tuesday’s contest, there were signs that voters’ views on abortion were more nuanced than their partisan leanings. A July poll, for example, found that a third of voters favored no restrictions on abortion, while only 9 percent said they preferred a total ban. And a 2021 survey conducted by Fort Hays State University found that over 50 percent of Kansans agreed with the statement: “The Kansas government should not place any regulations on the circumstances under which women can get abortions.”
“People make a lot of assumptions about Kansas,” said Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), the sole Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, who flipped a previously red district in 2018. “People here care about their community and care about things being fair.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, speaks to reporters about the compromise bill that could substantially alter a tax provision called the “carried interest loophole.”
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, speaks to reporters about the compromise bill that could substantially alter a tax provision called the “carried interest loophole.”
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Tucked inside the sprawling Senate compromise bill for climate change and health care is an effort, years in the making, to close what Democrats say is a loophole that benefits a handful of the richest Americans: the carried interest tax.
The legislative compromise, reached last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, could represent the single largest federal clean energy investment in US history.
About $14 billion meant to fund those efforts would come, Democrats say, from a change to the way the US taxes what is called “carried interest,” a better way that many fund managers and private equity investors earn their compensation.
But it has long been controversial because this kind of income is currently taxed at a much lower rate than the salary most Americans earn from ordinary jobs.
The long-standing provision has survived repeated attempts and promises to eliminate it, from Democrats and Republicans alike.
“There’s a lot of money at stake. Some of the richest Americans have made their fortunes by earning carried interest, especially through private equity funds,” said Steve Rosenthal, a fellow at the Urban Institute’s Tax Policy Center, in an interview with NPR.
How does the loophole work, and what have Democrats proposed?
“Partners in private equity firms and hedge funds who generally manage other people’s money get a share of the profits from any deal they do — often about a 20% share, even if they have invested any of their own money in it,” said David Wessel, an economics fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with NPR.
Here’s the rub: While that slice of profit pocketed by hedge fund managers is essentially their salary, it is taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. Rather than be subject to the normal individual income tax rate — 37% for the highest bracket of earners — carried interest, so long as it is held for at least three years, is taxed at the capital gains rate, which is typically 20% for those high-income earners.
The difference could represent billions of dollars. (Precise estimates can be difficult because “there’s a lot of opaqueness to private equity,” Rosenthal noted.)
Senate Democrats say their proposal would raise $14 billion over a period of 10 years. That number is equal to an estimate issued by the Congressional Budget Office for a 2019 proposal to treat carried interest as ordinary income. (In 2020, the Congressional Research Service noted that the amount of money under this kind of management had reached $14.3 trillion, a dramatic increase in recent years.)
Currently, these kinds of investors must hold their earnings for three years to qualify for the 20% capital gains rate, rather than a higher short-term rate. The Democratic proposal would change the holding period from three years to five. (The longer holding period requirement would apply only to people earning more than $400,000 annually, a nod to Biden’s previous promise that he would not raise taxes on any Americans making less than that amount.) Other technical changes would attempt to prevent hedge fund managers from structuring their income in different ways.
“It wouldn’t completely close the loophole, but it would substantially restrict it,” Wessel said.
Where did the idea come from, and why hasn’t it passed before?
The idea of closing the loophole has been around for a long time.
Carried interest first surfaced in national headlines in 2007, after a law professor wrote a journal article about the loophole and helped launch a debate on Capitol Hill over whether to close it. The issue found itself on the table again in 2010, then again in 2011 amid the Occupy Wall Street protests. In 2012, carried interest came up in discussions about taxes paid by Mitt Romney, then the Republican nominee for president, during his years running a private equity investment firm. In 2016, presidential candidates Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton all promised to close the loophole (though President Trump’s tax bill in 2017 fell far short of eliminating it).
But no previous proposal to close the loophole has stuck — in part because of aggressive lobbying to keep it.
“There are a lot of private equity and hedge fund partners who are big campaign contributors, including to Democrats, and they care about this a lot,” Wessel said. Meanwhile, he added, “all the other constituents of Congress don’t even know what it is.”
Supporters of the loophole say it’s not a loophole at all — rather, the difference in tax rates represents an incentive to invest in the economy. They also say they pay taxes in other ways.
Another argument, perhaps more pragmatic, is that hedge fund managers would simply find other ways to structure their income to avoid the higher tax rate.
Will it pass this time? Maybe.
To pass their proposal, Democrats will likely have to secure all 50 votes from their own caucus — including that of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who last year helped to torpedo Democratic legislation over her opposition to any form of higher taxes for corporations or wealthy Americans.
In a Sunday interview on Fox News, Manchin disputed the characterization that the proposal, including its carried interest provision, would raise taxes.
“We did not raise taxes. We’ve closed loopholes. That’s all we did. I made sure there were no tax increases in this whatsoever,” Manchin said.
The Senate could take up the bill as early as this week. If it passes, the changes to the carried interest provision, along with the establishment of a corporate minimum tax rate of 15%, would help fund the development of renewable energy projects, encourage Americans to buy electric vehicles and support communities affected by climate change.
