Tag: 2022 Midterm Election

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Congress Elections GOP

Lauren Boebert Accused Of ‘Illegally Spending’ $60,000 In Run-Up To 2022 Midterm Election

Colorado Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is in trouble yet again for illegally spending $60,000 worth of campaign money in the run-up to the 2022 midterm election and reporting it improperly, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

End Citizens United filed the complaint. It alleges that Boebert spent some $60,000 on “get out the vote” phone calls and text messages.

Those outreach efforts are considered “in-kind” expenditures, but Boebert’s campaign didn’t report them as such, which is a violation of FEC rules.

According to the complaint, Newsweek reports,”Boebert may have made an illegal in-kind contribution to herself that exceeds the $5,000 limit set by federal law, or spent money to influence another campaign without reporting it, as required by federal law.”

“Congresswoman Boebert used her leadership PAC as a personal bank but, unfortunately for her, this practice is illegal under federal law,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller noted.

The details of the expenditures clearly indicate that Boebert and her campaign did indeed violate the FEC rule.

Boebert For Congress reported paying $4,623.22 to Telephone Town Hall Meeting, Inc. for “text message advertising” on October 28, 2022, FEC filings show, while We The People Leadership PAC paid $6,221.73 to Telephone Town Hall Meeting, Inc. for “Voter Contact – GOTV Calls/Texts”

Then, on November 18, 2022, We The People Leadership PAC paid Telephone Town Hall Meeting, Inc. for $53,760.25 for conducting “Voter Contact – GOTV Calls/Texts.”

The group believes that as two of the payments occurred on the same day, this also indicates the leadership PAC’s disbursement was either a contribution to Boebert’s campaign or an independent expenditure in support of Boebert or other candidates.

The congresswoman has not yet commented on the alleged violation.

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Congress U.S. Senate

New Senate Composition Means Manchin And Sinema Are About To ‘Lose Power’

Next Tuesday, if Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) defeats GOP challenger Herschel Walker (and every metric suggests he will), Democrats will have a 51-49 advantage in the U.S. Senate, a gain of one seat in the recent midterm elections.

And if Warnock wins, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) will no longer be able to stand in the way of progress being made by their Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber of Congress.

Nick Reynolds of Newsweek explains:

Depending on the result of next week’s runoff election between Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, Democrats stand to control 51 seats in the U.S. Senate as well as the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, requiring both senators to break with their party to sink a piece of legislation.

Bottom line: Manchin and Sinema are about to lose what power they have.

“I don’t expect Manchin or Sinema to have much influence to be quite honest,” Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, told Newsweek.

[…]

“To the degree that they do have influence, it’ll be much more in the vein of the infrastructure bill-type influence,” Huder said in reference to concessions they received for fossil fuel permitting and corporate tax carveouts in a recent infrastructure package.

“They’re not going to be able to kill Democratic initiatives like they did,” he added. “They’re not going to be able to threaten not to go along with the filibuster.

“They’re not going to be able to do any of the stuff that really gave them a lot of veto power. They can be a positive influence in the sense that they can negotiate with Republicans, but that’s really the limit of what they can do.”

Gregory Magarian, a professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, concurs, noting:

“Republicans will need to pass legislation that Democrats will accept, while what we’ve seen Manchin and Sinema do over the last couple of years is pull the legislation sufficiently far to the right to be acceptable to those pivotal House Republicans.

“So at that point, if we’re thinking about this in fairly linear ideological terms, there really shouldn’t be anything left for Manchin and Sinema to do.”

Good! All they’ve done is obstruct, so it’s time they became powerless and irrelevant.

 

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Congress Elections GOP

Newspaper Editorial Urges Democrats To Save The Nation From GOP ‘Toddlers’ In The House

On January 3, 2023, the new Republican majority will take control of the House of Representatives, meaning that the next two years will likely be a shitshow on steroids with clueless GOP buffoons such as Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Matt Gaetz (FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Lauren Boebert (CO) vying for leadership positions on important committees that control the budget, foreign policy, intelligence, and national defense.

The idea of such clowns running the House has the editorial board of the St. Louis Times-Dispatch terrified, and they’re using an op-ed to urge Democrats to try and minimize the damage before control passes to the GOP.

Just as it’s a good idea to child-proof a home before having toddlers over for a birthday party, congressional Democrats should be doing what they can during the current lame-duck session to prepare for the incoming Republican House majority — a crowd that has literally announced its intention to threaten America’s fiscal stability, block election reforms and abandon Ukraine.

A perfect example, the writers continue, is Republicans who plan to use the federal debt ceiling as a “tool” to get what they want: Cuts in entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Refusing to raise the debt ceiling when necessary isn’t akin to reining in spending. The spending has already happened; this is akin to refusing to pay the bills when they come due, jeopardizing economic stability domestically and globally. Congress should, right now, raise the debt ceiling enough to ensure it won’t be an issue again for at least two years, depriving [Republicans] of this particular mischief.

Additionally, the editorial adds, is foreign policy, especially as it relates to Russia and our Ukrainian allies.

Many Republicans are threatening that (Ukrainian) aid — apparently having forgotten that America is supposed to stand up against tyranny and for democracy.

The op-concludes with a call for Democrats to act and act quickly to save the country from the horrors Republicans plan to try inflict on the nation.

Democrats who still control Congress now have not just a right but a duty to ensure that the worst instincts of the incoming majority are reined in before they’re seated. Let’s cover those plug sockets.

Categories
Elections GOP U.S. Senate

Lindsey Graham Does 35 Push-Ups To Support Herschel Walker – And It’s Even Worse Than You Can Imagine

In an effort to get Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker elected in next months runoff election, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show Wednesday evening and agreed to do push-ups to prove his support for Walker.

Queerty ran across the video of Graham working out on Walker’s YouTube account and reports:

The challenge came about after Sean Hannity spoke to Walker and Graham on a Fox News segment. He said that Walker impressed him previously with his ability to do push-ups. Hannity suggested Walker check out whether Graham was up to the challenge of doing some himself.

This led to a campaign video in which Graham challenges viewers to donate $34 if he and Walker can each do 34 push-ups. It’s unclear why they plumped for the number 34.

In the video, Graham happily gets down and does 35 push-ups, followed by Walker.

Before you watch the video, you might want to make sure your children and elderly relatives are out of the room. It could well be too much for impressionable youngsters and lead to cardiac arrest for anyone over the age of 60 once they start laughing and can’t quit.

Graham was also present when Walker was being interviewed and the candidate proudly proclaimed that “This erection is about the people.”

Erection election in a pumped up direction. Since Walker is too clueless to explain policy, the push-ups tell all you need to know about the “substance” of his campaign.

Categories
GOP Joe Biden

Biden Trolls GOP And Their Midterm ‘Red Wave’ During Pardoning Of Thanksgiving Turkeys

President Joe Biden was in rare form Monday during the annual White House ceremony to pardon two turkeys who would have otherwise been part of a Thanksgiving meal.

Mediaite reports that this year’s turkeys were named Chocolate and Chip.

After welcoming guests for the turkey pardon, Biden even managed to slip in a dig at Republicans who had been predicting a “red wave” in the midterm elections. Instead, the GOP narrowly won a majority in the House and is on the verge of being on the wrong end of a 51-seat Democratic Senate majority. That will be determined in a December 6 runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R).

“Before I gobble up too much time, the votes are in, they’ve been counted and verified, there’s no ballot stuffing, there’s no fowl play. The only red wave this season is gonna be if our German Shepherd, Commander, knocks over the cranberry sauce.”

After that was the formal pardoning of the two birds:

“Based on their temperament and commitment to being productive members of society, I hereby pardon Chocolate and Chip.”

The two lucky turkeys will spend their lives at a bird sanctuary.