Jon Stewart rails against Pat Toomey, other Senate Republicans over stalled burn pits legislation

(CNN) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democrats and comedian and activist Jon Stewart railed against Senate Republicans who voted against legislation to help veterans suffering from ailments related to toxic burn pits, calling it a "gut punch" to the veterans who had come to Capitol Hill to celebrate the legislation.

Stewart, speaking Thursday with CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead," said later of lawmakers, "I'm used to lies. I'm used to hypocrisy. I'm used to their cowardice. I'm not used to the cruelty, the casual cruelty ... a bill they had fought for, for more than a decade."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Stewart said earlier during the news conference, lied to veterans by saying "we'll get it done" and then voting against the bill. Stewart also criticized Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican retiring at the end of his term.

"Pat Toomey didn't lose his job. He's walking away," Stewart said.

 Stewart apologized for using foul language, but then outlined what the senators were voting against, with a veteran saying the bill "gives them health care, gives them benefits, lets them live from become an addict, keeps veterans from committing suicide."

 Senator Toomey is not going to hear that because he won't sit down with this man ... None of them will hear it. And none of them will care," Stewart said.

"What just makes the gut punch that much more devastating is that these people all came down here so that they could finally tell the men and --" Stewart said off camera ahead of the news conference, pausing mid-sentence and tearing up. "Their constituents are dying. And they're gonna get it done after recess? You don't -- tell their cancer to take a recess, tell their cancer to stay home and go visit their families."

 Stewart told Tapper of a veteran who "attempted to take his own life based on his desperation with this system and this process of being denied care."

"And these guys, they act like, 'Oh, don't worry. Maybe we'll get to it now, maybe we'll get to it in the lame duck session.' Some of these folks won't be around," Stewart continued. "They live scan to scan. So they can pretend to be on Senate time, but these other folks are on human time. And that time is precious.

 The goal, Stewart said, is for congressional lawmakers to stay on Capitol Hill until the bill has passed.

"When you fight for this country, you don't get to leave until the mission is completed, until your job is done. They don't let you just leave. And we feel that the Senate has to live up to the oath that the men and women who fight for this country have to live up to," he said.

Toomey declined to comment on Stewart's earlier criticism, saying, "That's not worth responding to." He denied as "absurd" that objections to the bill were spurred by Democrats reaching a separate deal on a reconciliation bill.

When asked for a response to Stewart's comments, a spokesperson for McConnell pointed to his floor remarks from Thursday morning. McConnell said he supports the "substance of the bill" but added "even on legislation this major and this costly, the Democratic Leader tried to block the Senate from any semblance of a fair amendment process.

 McConnell argued that the legislation as written "could also allow Democrats to effectively spend the same money twice and enable hundreds of billions in new, unrelated spending on the discretionary side of the federal budget." He pushed for a vote on an amendment from Toomey aimed at reeling in costs from the package.

An earlier version of the legislation passed the Senate in an 84-14 vote in June, but Senate Republicans voted en masse against a procedural vote Wednesday night that would end debate on the bill and tee it up for final passage, with 25 Senate Republicans who supported the previous version of the legislation voting against the procedural vote.

 

Trump’s fake electors: The Pennsylvania List

The scheme is reportedly under investigation by the FBI and the Justice Dept., which have issued subpoenas to several of the people involved by Kira Lerner 6/29/2022

The 84 people who signed bogus documents claiming that Donald Trump won the 2020 election include dozens of local Republican Party leaders, candidates for public office, and current and former state and federal office holders.

Groups from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all allegedly met in December 2020 and sent lists of so-called alternate electors to the National Archives after the 2020 election. The scheme is reportedly under investigation by the FBI and the Department of Justice, which have issued subpoenas to several of the people involved. 

The plot is also a focus of the U.S. House select committee hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and GOP attempts to overturn the results of the election. 

During a recent committee hearing, Rep. Adam Schiff explained how Trump and his campaign were directly involved in the scheme to replace Joe Biden’s legitimate electors. They convinced people to sign onto documents that would be used if Trump were successful in litigation, but then continued the scheme anyway, even as the campaign continuously lost in court and top advisers and lawyers backed away from involvement. 

Schiff also displayed text messages revealing how Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin likely played a part in the scheme. The texts showed how Johnson’s chief of staff attempted to coordinate the handoff of the slate of fake electors to former Vice President Mike Pence. Johnson initially denied any involvement, but then admitted he was on an email chain regarding the scheme.   

Despite renewed attention in Washington on the fake electors, the vast majority of people involved in the scheme have so far escaped scrutiny. 

In January, States Newsroom published a full list of the fake electors. Since that time, as the investigation has intensified, the people involved have appeared on the ballot in primaries, been subpoenaed, and have left their positions or started new ones. 

The slate of fake electors now includes at least three current candidates for office, including Burt Jones, who won the Republican primary for lieutenant governor in Georgia and will appear on the ballot in November; Jim Lamon, a candidate for U.S. Senate from Arizona.

The slate also includes four people who have lost elections since signing their names as fake electors. Lou Barletta and Charlie Gerow both ran in the Republican primary for Pennsylvania governor but lost the election in May. Kelly Ruh was an alderperson for De Pere, Wisconsin, until recently but lost reelection in April. Robert Spindell Jr., a member of the Wisconsin Election Commission, lost his internal commission election to chair the group.

T he group also includes seven current officeholders: 

• Jake Hoffman, an Arizona state representative.
• Burt Jones, a Georgia state senator.
• Stanley Grot, the Shelby Township clerk in Michigan.
• Amy Facchinello, a member of the school board in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
• Robert Spindell Jr., a member of the Wisconsin Election Commission. 
• Josephine Ferro, the Monroe County Register of Wills in Pennsylvania. 
• *Sam DeMarco III, an Allegheny County at-large council member in Pennsylvania

 

In addition to the chair, former chair or co-chair of the state Republican Party in all seven states, the group includes people for whom political controversy and investigations are nothing new:

• Michael Ward of Arizona has been accused of spitting in the eye of a former campaign volunteer for his wife, Kelli Ward.
• Tom Carroll of Pennsylvania was accused by a Black colleague of leaving a stuffed monkey on her desk in a racist act, while he was serving as an assistant district attorney.
• Gloria Kay Godwin of Georgia has been accused of stalking after allegedly attempting to interfere in a citizen effort to obtain signatures for a recall election petition.

In January, the Congressional Select Committee on January 6th announced it had subpoenaed 14 of the counterfeit electors who it believes have information about how they met and who was behind the scheme, according to committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss. Each of the 14 served as “chair” or “secretary” on the state slates of fake electors. 

In March 2021, liberal watchdog group American Oversight made public the fake elector documents, which it received in response to a public records request.

Attorneys general from the states involved in the scheme have investigated whether to bring charges against the Trump backers who participated, but no charges have been filed to date. 

PENNSYLVANIA (20)

Bill Bachenberg*: Bachenberg is the owner of Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays and an NRA board member. He and his wife operate Camp Freedom, a nonprofit that offers shooting experiences for veterans and first responders with disabilities and their families.

Lou Barletta: Barletta recently ran for governor of Pennsylvania. He previously served as a member of the U.S. House, representing Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019, and as mayor of Hazleton from 2000 to 2010.

Tom Carroll: Carroll was recently elected a Northampton County Republican Committee member. He ran for district attorney in Northampton County in 2019 and refused to concede the race, citing “overwhelming irregularities” in how the election was administered. He previously served as assistant district attorney for the county but resigned after a Black colleague reported that he put a stuffed monkey with a shirt reading “Loudmouth” on her keyboard. 

Ted Christian: Christian was the Pennsylvania state director for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He runs the Philadelphia office for lobbying firm Duane Morris Government Strategies.

Chuck Coccodrilli: Coccodrilli was a board member with the Pennsylvania Great Frontier PAC and an advocate and board member at Camp Freedom. He died in October 2021 after an illness.

Bernadette Comfort: Comfort is the vice chairwoman for the Pennsylvania Republican Party. She works for Novak Strategic Advisors and has worked with the party to increase the number of women in decision-making positions. She was also a top aide to former Pennsylvania first lady Michele Ridge in the 1990s.

Sam DeMarco III: DeMarco is the chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Party, an at-large member of the Allegheny County Council in Pennsylvania, and a member of the Allegheny County Board of Elections. The FBI interviewed him at his home in June and served him a subpoena about his role in the scheme.

 

Marcela Diaz-Myers: Diaz-Myers is the chairwoman of PA GOP Hispanic Advisory Council.

Christie DiEsposti: DiEsposti is an account representative at Pure Water Technology, according to her LinkedIn profile. 

Josephine Ferro: Ferro was elected Monroe County Register of Wills in 2015 and is the former president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women.

Charlie Gerow: Gerow recently ran for governor of Pennsylvania but lost in the primary. He is a GOP political strategist, the vice chair of the American Conservative Union, and the CEO of Quantum Communications, a Harrisburg-based public relations firm. Last July, he cooperated with a police investigation after he was involved in a fatal crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which he says he did not cause.

Kevin Harley: Harley works with Gerow as managing director of Quantum Communications and has served as a spokesperson for Gerow. He has also worked as press secretary for former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett.

Leah Hoopes: Hoopes is a small business owner and Republican committeewoman for Bethel Township in Delaware County who served as a poll watcher in 2020. She was named as a defendant in a Delaware County voting machine supervisor’s lawsuit alleging that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that election officials tampered with the election made the supervisor the subject of physical threats. 

Ash Khare: An immigrant from India and retired engineer, Khare is active in the Pennsylvania Republican Party and describes himself as a political junkie. 

Andre McCoy: McCoy is a director of government affairs with more than 30 years of military service and civilian experience, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Lisa Patton*: Patton was the director of events in Pennsylvania for Trump’s campaign. She was the owner of Twin Ponds Family Recreation Center in Harrisburg, according to her LinkedIn. 

Pat Poprik: Poprik is the chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee.

 Andy Reilly: Reilly is a national committeeman for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and former secretary for the party. Reilly was previously elected twice to serve as a member of the Delaware County Council. He’s also managing partner at the law firm Swartz Campbell LLC. 

Suk Smith: Smith is owner of  Patriot Arms Inc., a firearms training center, and Dragons Way School of Kenpo Inc., a martial arts school in Carlisle. 

Calvin Tucker: Tucker is deputy chairman and director of engagement and advancement for the Pennsylvania Republican Party. In 2016, he served as a media surrogate and African American adviser to Trump’s campaign.   

Slated to sign but replaced:

Robert Asher: Asher has held several positions in the Pennsylvania Republican Party and has held various local elected offices. While chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania, he was convicted in 1987 of conspiracy and bribery, among other charges, for accepting bribes in exchange for awarding a state contract. He resigned from the position and served one year in federal prison. 

Lawrence Tabas: Tabas is chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, longtime general counsel to the party and a well-known Philadelphia elections attorney. Before the 2020 election, Tabas told the Atlantic that he had spoken with the Trump reelection campaign about the possibility that Republican-controlled legislatures could directly appoint electors, but he claimed the comments were taken out of context. 

Thomas Marino: Marino was a member of the U.S. House from 2011 until 2019, when he abruptly resigned two weeks into his term. He has also served as U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In 2017, Trump nominated him to be the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but he withdrew from consideration after reports that he had crafted a bill that protected pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors and made it harder for the federal government to tackle the opioid crisis. 

 Lance Stange: Stange works for Novak Strategic Advisors and has served as chairman of the northeast caucus of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.

Carolyn Welsh: Welsh was the sheriff of Chester County for two decades until 2019 and was one of Trump’s earliest boosters in Pennsylvania, often speaking at his rallies. In March, she entered a no-contest plea to misdemeanor theft charges for allegedly allowing employees to improperly collect comp time, paid for by tax dollars, for volunteering at fundraisers for the office’s K-9 unit. A judge ordered her to pay restitution and a fine. 

Christine Toretti: Toretti is the national committeewoman for the Pennsylvania Republican Party and is the former chairman and CEO of S. W. Jack Drilling Co., an oil and gas company involved in fracking. 

Robert Gleason: Gleason was formerly the chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. He is a businessman who was appointed by Trump in 2018 to the board of visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy.

 

 

DOJ to investigate Texas' controversial border plan: By Ja'han Jones

The Biden administration is looking into Gov. Greg Abbott's derided Operation Lone Star.

 Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, his now-beleaguered plan for state-run border control, with clear political ambitions. 

Announced last March, the controversial initiative was meant to be a stick in the Biden administration’s eye. Abbott wanted the Texas National Guard to effectively act as federal border agents, despite the fact that its members — unlike real border agents — don’t have the authority to apprehend or incarcerate migrants for crossing the border without legal documentation. For that reason, Operation Lone Star has been little more than right-wing, anti-immigrant theater, featuring cruel and performative stunts like busing migrants all the way to Washington, D.C., from the Texas-Mexico border. 

And now, the Justice Department is investigating the operation for civil rights violations. The Texas Tribune and ProPublica were first to report the news Wednesday. And the investigation was confirmed by Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who has called for a probe into Operation Lone Star for months. 

Abbott has garnered billions of taxpayer dollars for this operation, which has reportedly deployed more than 10,000 National Guard members and Department of Public Safety troopers for a mission rife with controversy. 

Here’s how the Tribune and ProPublica broke down some of Operation Lone Star's biggest issues: 

An investigation by the Tribune, ProPublica and The Marshall Project found that in touting the operation’s accomplishments, state officials included arrests with no connection to the border and statewide drug seizures. The news organizations also revealed that trespassing cases represented the largest share of the operation’s arrests. DPS stopped counting some charges, including cockfighting, sexual assault and stalking, after the publications began asking questions about their connections to border security.

 Reporters for the Texas Tribune and ProPublica did, in fact, find that thousands of migrants have been arrested for misdemeanor trespassing, with some jailed for weeks without charges. Several jailed migrants who claim Abbott’s operation is functionally racist and a violation of their civil rights have filed a separate class-action lawsuit seeking relief.

 In essence, Abbott has created a (very) junior version of the U.S. Border Patrol that’s extremely costly, cruel and ineffective in curbing undocumented immigration. 

Even the people tasked with carrying out the operation know it’s been a disaster. Texas National Guard troops assigned to the operation have complained that they’re being misused, and have been forced to leave their families only to sit idle all day. For example, in an internal troop survey leaked to the Tribune and the Military Times back in February, one guardsman said, “I’m wasting time watching the grass grow at my [observation] point [along the border], while my civilian job is dying on the vine.”

It’s a sad state of affairs for Abbott, who’s tried to frame himself as an authority on immigration and a foil to Biden. He’s been touting his pet project, Operation Lone Star, for more than a year now. But the DOJ’s new investigation will likely help show how destructive the whole idea has been

The Supreme Court handed coal power a win. But experts say that won't save it: b yLaura Benshoff

The state of North Dakota is rich in a kind of soft, brown coal, called lignite, which it burns to make electricity, selling the excess to neighboring states and Canada.

When then-President Barack Obama rolled out the Clean Power Plan in 2015, intending to curb the use of coal-fired power, state officials viewed it as a major threat.

"The Clean Power Plan was forcing conversion from coal-based generation," said Special Assistant Attorney General Paul Seby. "It would have impaired North Dakota dramatically."

 So, along with more than two dozen other states and coal companies, North Dakota successfully sued to stop the plan from taking effect in 2016.

But in years since, coal power generation declined anyway, hitting a 42-year-low in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

 In a 6-3 decision late last month in West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority blocked the EPA from putting out another regulation as broad as the Clean Power Plan. However, that ruling is unlikely to reverse coal power's downward trend, say analysts.

 That's because the main driver was not government intervention, according to Natalie Biggs, global head of thermal coal markets for the research firm Wood Mackenzie.

"The development of fracking technologies and very cheap natural gas production in the U.S. played a much larger role in the decline of coal generation than environmental policies," she said.

At the same time that coal was fighting in the courts, the U.S. saw a glut of natural gas come to market.

Coal power capacity peaked in 2011, but as that decade stretched on nearly one-third of the U.S. coal fleet shut down, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

 Hundreds that have not closed switched over to running on natural gas, according to federal data.

As a result, coal went from providing more than half of the country's electricity, according to NBER researchers, to less than a quarter.

Natural gas also emits far less carbon dioxide when burned, so even without the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. hit the carbon emissions targets set in that policy anyway, and years ahead of schedule, according to the Environmental Integrity Projec

"The bottom line is that so many of these companies have made the decision to move away from coal for a lot of different reasons, mostly economic reasons," said Taylor Kuykendall, who covers the metal and mining sector for S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Government policy, while not the main driver of the decline, has helped solidify it and discourage new plants from being built, he said. Pollution standards for mercury and coal ash make it more expensive to think about building coal plants.

Not only that, but any new plan comes with "a target on its back," said Kuykendall. "You're going to face pressure from somebody to either not build it or to have it closed down," he continued. Major corporations, such as Google, and more than a dozen states have their own clean energy goals, adding to the push to turn away from fossil fuels.

 

During the last couple of years, natural gas prices rose, pushing up coal use once more, but Biggs said that is unlikely to last.

"Eventually the gas markets will adjust and coal will be under the same competition pressure going forward," she said.

With the price of renewable energy dropping as well, new competitors will add to that pressure.

Seven years after the Clean Power Plan made waves, its critics won in the country's highest court. Many who fought the case talk about their win as one against executive overreach, not a win for coal.

 "If Congress had intended to give EPA such sweeping authority to transform an entire sector of our economy, Congress would have done so explicitly," said Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Capito, in a statement about the decision.

"The court recognized the cooperative federalism aspect of how [the Clean Air Act] was written," said Seby.

North Dakota still makes more than half of its electricity by burning coal, but some plants there are shutting down, too. Seby points out that wind power, fueled by steady gusts crossing the Great Plains, is also a major player.

 

The Highway of the Future

Public-Sector Vision and Private-Sector Competition Bring Local Job Creation, Transit Solutions, State-of-the-Art Technology, Pedestrian Trails and More  

As the U.S. confronts rising inflation, global supply chain disruptions and unprecedented challenges to the U.S. labor market, building resilient infrastructure has never been more important.

Projections from the United Nations indicate that up to 6 billion people will live and work in urban areas by 2050. These numbers paint a sobering picture and underscore an urgency for states to confront their aging transportation ecosystems.

Answering this call in Virginia, the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project, is revolutionizing a congested corridor into a modern, sustainable, technology-driven multi-mobility roadway. Fueled by a public-private partnership at no cost to Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers, the project is creating change in record time and using state-of-the-art technology while being completed earlier than anticipated. 

 Bringing a dynamic roadway to bear

According to the Reason Foundation, the U.S. has built almost $40 billion in new infrastructure through public-private partnerships — projects that may not have happened otherwise, and the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project is the largest public-private partnership roadway infrastructure project undertaken this century in the U.S.

Consistently ranked amongst the most traffic-congested regions in the country, Northern Virginia has faced years of daily stop-and-go traffic. The roadway will improve not just reliability in the 22.5-mile critical corridor of I-66, but the overall quality of life for travelers, while offering a variety of multimodal transportation options for all. 

 

As they began the ambitious Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project, state planners received early proposals that required approximately $1 billion in traditional public funding. However, this funding route would have prevented future corridor improvements or transit investment.

Seeking an alternative path, the Commonwealth pursued a state-led, open and competitive procurement process. Private-sector competition from all over the world saved the Commonwealth taxpayers a total of $2.5 billion and generated a further $579 million contribution from the private sector. This path — which other states are pursuing — provided funding for additional priority multimodal projects around the region, including transit solutions, mixed-use trails, road and bridge improvements, rail, park-and-ride facilities and bus facilities. These multimodal initiatives include projects like the City of Fairfax and the Town of Vienna mixed-use trails, Virginia Rail Express (VRE) Manassas line expansion and improvements and the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission bus and maintenance facility. 

 

Additionally, an unprecedented $800 million commitment is being made over the life of the project for transit and transit operational improvements along the I-66 corridor by 2066. With private-sector investment totaling more than $3.6 billion, the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project comes at no cost to Commonwealth taxpayers.

“The I-66 Outside the Beltway project is a national example of a multimodal solution providing not only a world-class, traffic congestion-reducing roadway but also pedestrian and biking trails and park-and-ride facilities for enhanced Metro access,” said former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters. “All made possible by marketplace competition and collaboration between the public and private sectors.” 

 

Incorporating state-of-the-art technology in infrastructure

Behind the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project is a collaboration between the developer consortium led by Cintra, including partners Meridiam and APG, and the contractor team led by Ferrovial Construction together with partner Allan Myers. This next generation roadway, the culmination of thoughtful public and private sector teamwork, will help motorists save time, reduce traffic congestion, improve travel safety and enhance regional connectivity. 

 Leveraging the Cintra-led AIVIA Smart Roads vehicle-to-infrastructure system for supporting autonomous vehicles, the roadway will feature seamless interaction between autonomous, connected and manned vehicles. Combined with high-powered cloud computing, vehicles will communicate with the infrastructure itself to sense inclement weather, construction zones, roadway obstacles and other potential safety concerns. Ultimately, the technology enables more people to move safely and arrive at their destination more quickly. This holistic mobility corridor connects communities through its rail line expansion, park-and-ride hubs, more than 2,000 new parking spaces, bus bays and carpool areas, as well as 11 miles of shared-use bicycle and pedestrian trails. 

 Since becoming operational in 2014, drivers on Cintra-developed managed lanes in North Texas experienced 35 percent travel time savings during peak hours through October 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. By adding managed lanes to I-66 Outside the Beltway in Northern Virginia, the project will reduce congestion and increase traffic flow on the infrastructure. With two managed lanes in either direction, the project utilizes a dynamically priced tolling system to maintain speeds of at least 55 miles per hour. All the while, motorists will have the option of driving on three improved, free general-purpose lanes in both directions. 

  Creating jobs and transforming a corridor

Primed for completion by the end of 2022, the efficient alignment of the public and private sector interests, as demonstrated through the vertical integration of the developer consortium and contractor team, has turned a long-discussed project into reality. As a result, thousands of jobs were created for Virginians.

The Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project has already put more than 400 local and regional companies and disadvantaged business enterprises to work, not only creating a roadway but also contributing to stronger connections throughout the area's local economies that benefit all segments of the region and state. At the height of construction, at least 1,700 local workers were on-site each day.

Call them “Never Mastrianos. ”‘Mastriano is unacceptable’: A group of Pennsylvania Republicans is organizing to support Shapiro

First there were "Never Trumpers," Republicans who rejected former President Donald Trump and his controversies. Now come "Never Mastrianos," who feel the same way about the GOP nominee for governor. by Chris Brennan

 Call them “Never Mastrianos.”

A group of Pennsylvania Republicans with long records in government and politics will form a super PAC Wednesday to support state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, in a rejection of the GOP nominee, State Sen. Doug Mastriano.

Republicans for Shapiro will be chaired by former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood, a Bucks County Republican who in 2020 organized a similar effort to oppose then-President Donald Trump’s bid for a second term.

That comes as Shapiro is expected to announce Wednesday a “first wave of Republican endorsements,” including Greenwood.

 A self-described Never Trumper, Greenwood rattled off a long list of reasons for his opposition to Mastriano in an interview with The Inquirer.

They include: Mastriano’s attendance at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, his use of campaign funds to bus supporters to that event, his repeated claims of debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, his vow to ban all abortion in the state with no exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person, his opposition to gay marriage, and his comparison of gun-control measures to Nazism.

“I think he’s an extreme, dangerous guy who is out of touch with the majority of the people in Pennsylvania,” said Greenwood, who also expressed concern that Mastriano as governor could create a crisis in Pennsylvania’s election in 2024 if Trump seeks the presidency again.

 Greenwood said he does not know Shapiro but has heard he is “a very bright, very thoughtful, mainstream man of good character.” He is hosting a fund-raiser for Shapiro in September and noted he raised $2 million in 2020 in a virtual fund-raiser for President Joe Biden.

 Shapiro is expected to also announce Republican endorsements from former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, who represented a Lehigh Valley district; former Montgomery County Republican Party chair Ken Davis; former state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Schultz Newman of Montgomery County; former state House Speaker Denny O’Brien of Philadelphia; Lawrence County Commission Chair Morgan Boyd; and three more former state legislators.

Craig Snyder, a former chief of staff to the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, will run the political operation for Republicans for Shapiro. He said the group will reach out to Republicans who share concerns about Democratic politics and policies and might be caught up in a “red wave” of party enthusiasm during the midterm elections.

 Snyder, who briefly ran for the U.S. Senate last year, hopes to persuade his party’s voters to split their ticket, supporting Shapiro while also voting for Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.

 The group’s founding members include veterans from the administrations of former Republican Govs. Dick Thornburgh and Tom Ridge, including Murray Dickman, George Grode, James Seif, Bob Wilburn, Walter Cohen, and former state legislators Joe Conti, David Heckler, and Bob Jubelirer.

Greenwood in 2020 organized 27 former Republican members of Congress — three senators and 24 representatives from 18 states — to back Biden on the first day of the Republican National Convention. He denounced Trump then as a “small-minded, uncaring, self-aggrandizing compulsive liar.”

 Mastriano does not respond to requests for media interviews, sticking instead to campaigning through Facebook videos, conservative radio shows and podcasts, and direct outreach to supporters. On Friday, Mastriano emailed a fund-raising request, noting that Shapiro has “establishment support and corporate dollars pouring in” while he does not.

“With our primary now behind us, our campaign is ready to turn on our big guns, unite the GOP, and construct our surge between now and Election Day,” Mastriano wrote in that plea.

Snyder said the group will encourage Republicans to self-record videos explaining why they will reject Mastriano. Those will be folded into an effort to target like-minded voters for outreach.

“Donors get the idea of targeting 5% of the electorate because all of our elections are so damn close,” Snyder said. “If you can sway a small part of them, it can affect the outcome.”

 

What's up with Mitch: Mitch McConnell’s new hostage threat is brazen (even for him) by Steve Benen

 Mitch McConnell has been known to launch hostage strategies, but his threat to derail a bipartisan competitiveness bill is a doozy, even for him.

 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has never been timid about launching legislative hostage strategies. Indeed, for the Kentucky Republican, the word isn’t even especially inflammatory: McConnell has literally referenced “hostages“ when describing his tactics.

That said, the Senate GOP leader’s newest threat is brazen, even by McConnell’s standards. Roll Call reported:Republicans won’t back compromise legislation to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing and U.S. competitiveness with China if Democrats continue to negotiate a partisan budget package that can pass without GOP support, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.

 “Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” the Kentucky Republican declared via Twitter.

At this point, I suspect some of you are asking, “What in the world is USICA?” so let’s review how we arrived at this point.

As legislative fights go, this one hasn’t exactly been front-page news, but lawmakers — from both chambers and both parties — have spent much of the last year on an ambitious bill to bolster American competitiveness and counter China, in large part by addressing domestic semiconductor shortages.

 The point of the measure — the “United States Innovation and Competition Act” (USICA), though it’s gone by a few different names — is to make Americans less dependent on foreign manufacturing, especially in high tech. Some have even characterized this as a national security issue. It’s how this became a rare effort that’s intended to address a concern Democrats and Republicans take seriously.

 It’s why the House and Senate both passed versions of the bill, sending the issue to a conference committee that began work in April on merging the competing measures into one final package. Most Capitol Hill observers agreed that USICA was likely to pass before the fall elections.

That is, until yesterday.

 McConnell’s unexpected tweet was effectively a shot across the bow: The Senate Republican leader is prepared to throw away a year’s worth of work, derailing a bill his own party takes seriously, unless Democrats abandon their budget reconciliation bill.

And at this point, some of you are now also asking, “There’s a Democratic budget reconciliation bill?” The short answer is no, but after the Build Back Better effort was left for dead months ago, there’s been significant progress of late on a new bill that would focus on, among other things, lowering prescription drug cost

 Because the bill would be passed through the budget reconciliation process, it could not be filibustered, and therefore does not need any GOP votes.

For the better part of a year, McConnell worked from the assumption that Democrats would fight amongst themselves and never actually agree on a reconciliation package. For a long while, that belief appeared sound. But now that Democrats appear to be closing in on a possible deal, the Kentucky Republican is getting nervous — to the point that he’s scrambling to kill the agreement with the only tactic available to him

A hostage strategy.

Democrats were not impressed. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a written statement yesterday afternoon that read:

 "The Republican Senate leader is holding hostage a bipartisan package to strengthen American competitiveness versus China, that would yield hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in places like Southern Ohio, Idaho, and other states around the country. It would lower the cost of countless products, and end our reliance on imports. Why? To protect the ability of big pharmaceutical companies to price gouge. Senate Republicans are literally choosing to help China out compete the U.S. in order to protect big drug companies. This takes loyalty to special interests over working Americans to a new and shocking height. We are not going to back down in the face of this outrageous threat."

 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office similarly marveled at McConnell’s willingness to “side with the Chinese Communist Party against American workers and American industry.”

At face value, the GOP leader has a tough case to make: His current position is that he’d rather help our foreign competitors than allow Democrats to help consumers afford medications. It’s a tough sell at any time, but it’s especially tough during an election season.

 What’s less clear is what happens now. Will Democrats cave? Will McConnell? Will his Republican members stand behind his latest hostage standoff? How will Sen. Joe Manchin respond to McConnell’s latest gambit? Can USICA be folded into the reconciliation bill, making the hostage strategy irrelevant?