GOP heavyweights are lining up behind their favorites in Pennsylvania in the likely event of an extended recount in the Republican race for Senate. Former President Donald Trump has a candidate -- as well as a favorite and familiar cause of his own. Trump is promoting vague and baseless claims of election fraud in that race, in an awkward replay of post-2020 messaging. This time, all the votes in question belong to Republicans. Meanwhile, as the House's Jan. 6 committee makes final plans for public hearings next month, the disproven allegations surrounding Trump's own loss in 2020 are set to come into even more dramatic view for conservatives as well as the country at large. Four states are voting Tuesday in statewide primaries. In each of them, Republican candidates for offices that would oversee or help certify future elections continue to advance discredited accusations that the last federal election was stolen. The biggest contests are in Georgia, where Trump's mission to dislodge the incumbent GOP governor and secretary of state who stood behind President Joe Biden's victory has made those races into marquee and hugely impactful primary contests. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, a leader of failed legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is widely expected to fend off a primary challenge by Land Commissioner George P. Bush, despite Bush's pro-Trump break with much of the rest of his family. In Alabama, surprise late turns in Senate race leave Rep. Mo Brooks back in the conversation in the GOP primary. Brooks was a key Trump ally in and around the events of Jan. 6, but Trump revoked his endorsement because, according to Trump, Brooks went "woke" and urged supporters to move on from the 2020 election. (Brooks remains committed to the "big lie" and is refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee.) Trump is likely to win some races and lose some races this week, like he did each of the last two weeks. But beyond his win-loss record is a stark reality: A significant group of Republicans who say -- despite all evidence otherwise -- that there was significant fraud in 2020 are going to be on the November ballot for jobs where they will have responsibility over voting in 2024 and beyond. Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy drew rebuke from fellow lawmakers and others for comments he made last week appearing to suggest maternal mortality rates in his home state wouldn't be so high if data were "corrected for race" or if the maternal mortality rates for Black women weren't a factor. "About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we're not as much of an outlier as it'd otherwise appear," Cassidy said in an interview with Politico. "Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality." What Cassidy (who subsequently contended he was misunderstood) failed to address is this: The reasons behind the disparities in maternal mortality rates are no mystery. Public health experts have pointed to bias, issues around access to health care and racism's influence in institutions as reasons that Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. In Louisiana, that gap is even wider. There, Black women are four times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy-related causes. Cassidy's remarks were denounced by Black female House members. There are currently no Black women in the Senate. "GOP elected officials like Sen. Cassidy have no desire to dismantle these inequities — it's easier for them to ignore them. Because dismantling health inequities means acknowledging systemic racism, and it's against his best interests to do that," tweeted Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.. She later added," A truly 'pro-life' Senator should have a vested interest in ending maternal health disparities." "He doesn't seem to be care that Black women are disproportionately dying in his state. His indifference is sickening to read but it helps explain why America continue to struggle with a maternal health crisis," said Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., of Cassidy's comments. "To think that Sen. @BillCassidy, who is an MD, can downplay Louisiana's maternal mortality rate because a third of the state's population is African American reinforces the underlying biases among medical professionals that might interfere with delivering the best maternal care," tweeted Rep. Robin Kelly, D-IL. Cassidy is one of four physicians in the Senate. Opposed to abortions, he supports the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the defunding of Planned Parenthood, which advocates and health experts say could more broadly exacerbate the issues with health care and maternal mortality rates. In response to the controversy over what he told Politico, Cassidy tweeted on Sunday that "individuals are cutting off & misquoting my statements highlighting minority health disparities to create a malicious & fake narrative." He wrote: "My entire conversation was about my work to address racial bias in healthcare & address high maternal mortality among African American moms." The race in Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary is still too close to call nearly a week after Election Day -- making the state the center of false political claims for a second time in the last three years. On Friday, a federal appeals court ruled that undated mail ballots from last fall's election could be counted, sending lawyers for both Dave McCormick's and Dr. Mehmet Oz's campaigns into battle over every vote in what is increasingly looking like a victory that will come down to the smallest margins. Prior to the ruling, state courts backed Pennsylvania's requirement for voters to include the date on their mail ballots. Although the situation raises the specter of the fallout of the state's administration of the 2020 election, this cycle raises a major difference: Neither Oz nor McCormick are challenging the legitimacy of the votes cast, nor are they spreading false conspiracies about the counting process.
"Dr. Mehmet Oz continues to respectfully allow Pennsylvania's vote-counting process to take place and puts his faith in the Republican voters who we believe have chosen him as their nominee," Oz's campaign manager, Casey Contres, said in a statement over the weekend. Contres also accused McCormick's legal team of "following the Democrats' playbook" in an apparent reference to their backing of allowing the undated ballots to be counted. However, the same courtesy for the process was not expressed by former President Trump, who backed Oz in the primary. Instead, Trump took to a conservative social media outlet to suggest that somehow the state's Attorney General Josh Shapiro -- who is the Democratic nominee for governor and will run against Trump's pick, Doug Mastriano -- is involved with an unspecified conspiracy to count lawfully cast mail in ballots in the Republican Party. Neither Oz nor McCormick have expressed similar claims. - ABC News
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May 16 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday said Russia had no issue with Finland and Sweden, but that the expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow, as the Nordic countries move closer to joining NATO.
Putin, speaking in Moscow at a summit of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), said NATO's expansion was a problem for Russia and that it must look closely at what he said were the U.S.-led military alliance's plans to increase its global influence. - Reuters PORT CLINTON, Ohio – Ohio Republican Senate candidate Matt Dolan says he believes his campaign is bringing over supporters of other candidates in the final stretch before primary day, as reports indicate he's building significant momentum "I was the last person into this race, so the undecideds have had multiple times to go with any other candidate. So as they're becoming aware of me, that's where I'm rising in the polls," Dolan told Fox News in a Sunday interview at an Ottawa County Republican Women's Club event. "We're getting a lot of undecideds to come for us, I think we're getting some people leaving some other candidates," Dolan, an Ohio state senator, added. "They want somebody who's singularly focused on going to Washington to fight the Biden administration, fight for Ohioans and make America strong." Dolan mingled with voters over lunch at the event, which served barbecue chicken, cole slaw, potatoes and baked goods. Dolan is the only major candidate in the contentious and expensive GOP primary who didn't fight hard for former President Donald Trump's endorsement. He says he'll support Trump-style conservative policies in office, but doesn't want to run a nationalized race like other candidates are. "My message is talking about Ohio, taking about Ohioans' security, talking about Ohio's economic conditions, taking on the Biden administration," he said. "That's resonating. We knew it would resonate, and we feel good going into the last 48 hours that as people are paying attention to the race they'll know Dolan's the only person that's been taking about from Ohio from the beginning." Dolan's advisers have been predicting a late surge for weeks. There was some indication of that in the most recent Fox News Poll of the race, which showed Dolan as the only candidate besides venture capitalist and "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance to build support since early March. The poll was conducted in the immediate aftermath of Trump's endorsement of Vance. More recent reports show Dolan not just building momentum, but in genuine striking distance of winning the race ahead of Tuesday's primary election. Meanwhile, other candidates are still trading jabs over Trump's endorsement. Investment banker Mike Gibbons, former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken and former state Treasurer Josh Mandel continue to attack Vance over comments he made in 2016 that were highly critical of Trump and his voters. Those candidates were handed more ammunition Sunday when Trump stumbled over Vance's name in a Nebraska rally. "J.P., right? J.D. Mandel," Trump said, when referring to Vance as the Ohio candidate he endorsed. Gibbons campaign immediately seized the moment, saying Vance's "MAGA credentials, are fake." "Obviously J.D. Vance not only said some derogatory comments about President Trump but more importantly he said derogatory comments about the Trump voter," Timken said of Vance Friday. "I don't think he made a good decision coming into this race, particularly this late in the game," Gibbons said Sunday. "He took a guy that was single digits and made him competitive…. and I think a lot of Republicans in the state, conservatives in this state are concerned about that. They don't want to be told who to vote for by some guy from the West coast."
Donald Trump Jr., however, touted Vance Sunday as the "only candidate running for Senate in Ohio who my father and I trust to fight back against the RINO establishment and put America First." Dolan says that not only is his message hitting home with GOP primary voters, but that his approach will put Republicans in the best position to win in November. "The thing is with me, my message isn't going to have to change. My message has always been about Ohio," Dolan said in an interview with Fox News on Friday. Voters will go to the polls in the high-profile, expensive and contentious Senate primary on Tuesday, with Vance, Gibbons, Dolan and Mandel all seemingly within striking distance in many polls. And with a massive number of undecideds, Timken also maintains that she can pull out a late win thanks to her sprawling ground game. The winner of the GOP primary will likely face Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, in the general election in November. - Fox News |
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July 2022
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