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North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is elected as the state’s governor
Blog Updates |
2024/11/09 07:03
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North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein was elected governor on Tuesday, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and maintaining Democratic leadership of the chief executive’s office in a state where Republicans have recently controlled the legislature and appeals courts.
Stein, a Harvard-trained lawyer, former state senator and the state’s chief law enforcement officer since 2017, will succeed fellow Democrat Roy Cooper, who was term-limited from seeking reelection. He will be the state’s first Jewish governor. Robinson’s campaign was greatly hampered by a damning report in September that he had posted messages on an online pornography website, including that he was a “black NAZI.”
Democrats have held the governor’s mansion for all but four years since 1993, even as the GOP has held legislative majorities since 2011.
As with Cooper’s time in office, a key task for Stein likely will be to use his veto stamp to block what he considers extreme right-leaning policies. Cooper had mixed success on that front during his eight years as governor.
Otherwise, Stein’s campaign platform largely followed Cooper’s policy goals, including those to increase public school funding, promote clean energy and stop further abortion restrictions by Republicans.
Stein’s campaign dramatically outraised and outspent Robinson, who was seeking to become the state’s first Black governor.
For months Stein and his allies used television ads and social media to remind voters of previous inflammatory comments that Robinson had made about abortion, women and LGBTQ+ people that they said made him too extreme to lead a swing state.
“The people of North Carolina resoundingly embraced a vision that’s optimistic, forward-looking and welcoming, a vision that’s about creating opportunity for every North Carolinian,” Stein told supporters in his victory speech after Cooper introduced him. “We chose hope over hate, competence over chaos, decency over division. That’s who we are as North Carolinians.”
Robinson’s campaign descended into disarray in September when CNN reported that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago. In addition to the “black NAZI” comment, Robinson said he enjoyed transgender pornography and slammed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot,” according to the report. Robinson denied writing the messages and sued CNN and an individual for defamation in October.
In the days following the report, most of Robinson’s top campaign staff quit, many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates — including presidential nominee Donald Trump — distanced themselves from his campaign and outside money supporting him on the airwaves dried up. The result: Stein spent millions on ads in the final weeks, while Robinson spent nothing.
Stein had a clear advantage among women, young and older voters, moderates and urban and suburban voters, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,600 voters in the state. White voters were about evenly divided between Stein and Robinson, while clear majorities of Black voters and Latino voters supported Stein.
Fifteen percent of those who voted for Trump also backed Stein for governor, while just 2% of those who cast ballots for Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris backed Robinson.
Patrick Stemple, 33, a shipping coordinator attending a Trump rally last week in Greensboro, said he voted early for Trump but also chose Stein for governor.
Stemple mentioned both Stein’s ads talking about how he has fought illegal drug trafficking and his dislike for Robinson’s rhetoric. Stemple said the graphic language that CNN reported was used in Robinson’s posts reinforced his decision not to back Robinson.
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Republicans take Senate majority and eye unified power with Trump
Lawyer News |
2024/11/07 06:16
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Republicans have taken control of the U.S. Senate and are fighting to keep their majority in the U.S. House, which would produce a full sweep of GOP power in Congress alongside President-elect Donald Trump in the White House.
A unified Republican grip on Washington would set the course for Trump’s agenda. Or if Democrats wrest control of the House, it would provide an almost certain backstop, with veto power over the White House.
Trump, speaking early Wednesday at his election night party in Florida, said the results delivered an “unprecedented and powerful mandate” for Republicans.
He called the Senate rout “incredible.” And he praised House Speaker Mike Johnson, who dashed from his own party in Louisiana to join Trump. “He’s doing a terrific job,” Trump said.
From the U.S. Capitol, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, privately a harsh Trump critic, called it a “hell of a good day.”
Vote counting in some races could go on for days, and control of the House is too early to call.
The rally for Republicans started early on election night in West Virginia, when Jim Justice, the state’s wealthy governor, flipped the seat held by retiring Sen. Joe Manchin. From there, the Republicans marched alongside Trump across the Senate map.
Republicans toppled Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, the first incumbent senator to fall, with GOP luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur Bernie Moreno. They chased Democrats in the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Vice President Kamala Harris strained to carry the party forward, though Democrats avoided a total wipeout as Elissa Slotkin won an open Senate seat in Michigan and Sen. Tammy Baldwin was reelected in Wisconsin.
Democratic efforts to oust firebrand Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida collapsed. The unexpected battleground of Nebraska pushed Republicans over the top. Incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer brushed back a surprisingly strong challenge from independent newcomer Dan Osborn.
In one of the most-watched Senate races, in Montana, Democrat Jon Tester, a popular three-term senator and “dirt farmer” in the fight of his political career, lost to Trump-backed Tim Sheehy, a wealthy former Navy SEAL, who made derogatory comments about Native Americans, a key Western state constituency.
All told, Senate Republicans have a chance to scoop up a few more seats, potentially delivering their most robust majority in years — a coda to outgoing GOP Leader McConnell, who made a career charting a path to power, this time by recruiting high-wealth Republicans aligned with Trump.
He told reporters at a Capitol news conference that a Senate under Republican control would “control the guardrails” and prevent changes in Senate rules that would end the filibuster.
McConnell declined to answer questions about his past stark criticism of Trump or about the prospects of potential nominees in a new administration. He also said he viewed the election results as a referendum on the Biden administration.
“People were just not happy with this administration and the Democratic nominee was a part of it,” McConnell said. Ohio Republicans have tightened their grip on the Ohio Supreme Court from 4-3 to 6-1 by ousting two incumbent Democratic justices and winning a third, open seat, the Associated Press projects based on unofficial results. Results remain unofficial until they are certified by local county boards of elections and the Ohio Secretary of State.
The Ohio Supreme Court will rule on a variety of issues that affect the daily lives of Ohioans ranging from education and environmental issues to gerrymandering and elections to civil and reproductive rights.
The state’s highest court has been under Republican control since 1986 and Republicans currently have a 4-3 majority that will increase to 6-1 starting in 2025.
Republican Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Megan Shanahan defeated incumbent Democratic Justice Michael P. Donnelly, according to unofficial results.
“I’m honored and grateful to the millions of Ohioans who have put their trust in me to be their Ohio Supreme Court Justice,” Shanahan posted on her campaign Facebook page. “I’ll be true to what I campaigned on and will be a Supreme Court Justice who knows that my job is to interpret the law, not to make it. I’ll go to work each day and focus on protecting Ohio’s citizens, communities, and constitution.”
Incumbent Republican Justice Joseph Deters defeated incumbent Democratic Justice Melody Stewart — ousting her from the court, unofficial results show.
Deters decided not to run for his current seat and won a full six-year term. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Deters, a former prosecutor, to a vacant seat in January 2023, even though he had no prior experience as a judge.
In the race for an open seat, Republican Judge Dan Hawkins defeated Democratic Judge Lisa Forbes, the AP projected.
This race was for Deters’ open seat, a term that expires on Dec. 31, 2026. Hawkins currently serves on the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas and Forbes is on the 8th District Court of Appeals. Hawkins will face reelection for a full six-year term in 2026.
In 2021, Republican state lawmakers added party labels to the Ohio Supreme Court races, which were previously nonpartisan.
Democratic Justice Jennifer Brunner’s seat will be up in 2026. The seats of Republican Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy, Republican Justice Pat DeWine, and Republican Justice Pat Fischer will be up in 2028. The fight for control of the House became a state-by-state slog, much of which unfolded far from the presidential race.
House races are focused in New York and California, where Democrats are trying to claw back some of the 10 or so seats where Republicans have made surprising gains in recent years.
Other House races are scattered around the country, with some of the most contentious in Maine, the “blue dot” around Omaha, Nebraska, and in Alaska.
Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the House “remains very much in play.”
To gain control of the House, Democrats need to flip four seats from Republicans, while holding all of their own, a tall task especially in congressional districts where Trump has won. |
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What to know about the unprecedented floods that killed more than 200 in Spain
Lawyer News |
2024/11/04 06:16
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In a matter of minutes, flash floods caused by heavy downpours in eastern Spain swept away almost everything in their path. With no time to react, people were trapped in vehicles, homes and businesses. Many died and thousands of livelihoods were shattered.
A week later, authorities have recovered 218 bodies — with 213 of them in the eastern Valencia region. Police, firefighters and soldiers continued to search Tuesday for an unknown number of missing people.
In many of the 69 devastated localities, mostly located in the southern outskirts of Valencia city, people still face shortages of basic goods. Water is back to running through pipes but authorities say it is only for cleaning and not fit for drinking. Lines form at impromptu emergency kitchens and food relief stands in streets still covered with mud and debris.
Thousands of volunteers are helping soldiers and police reinforcements with the gargantuan task of cleaning up the mire and the countless wrecked cars. At least 46,000 insurance claims for totaled vehicles had been filed, according to Spain’s Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo.
The ground floors of thousands of homes have been ruined. Inside some of the vehicles that the water washed away or trapped in underground garages, there were still bodies waiting to be identified.
The frustration over the crisis management boiled over on Sunday when a crowd in hard-hit Paiporta hurled mud and other objects at Spain’s royals, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and regional officials when they made their first visit to the epicenter of the flood damage.
The storms concentrated over the Magro and Turia river basins and, in the Poyo canal, produced walls of water that overflowed riverbanks, catching people unaware as they went on with their daily lives on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday.
In the blink of an eye, the muddy water covered roads and railways, and entered houses and businesses in towns and villages on the southern outskirts of Valencia city. Drivers had to take shelter on car roofs, while residents took refuge on higher ground.
Spain’s national weather service said that in the hard-hit locality of Chiva, it rained more in eight hours than it had in the preceding 20 months, calling the deluge “extraordinary.” Other areas on the southern outskirts of Valencia city didn’t get rain before they were wiped out by the wall of water that overflowed the drainage canals.
When authorities sent alerts to mobile phones warning of the seriousness of the flooding and asking people to stay at home, many were already on the road, working or covered in water in low-lying areas or underground garages, which became death traps.
Scientists trying to explain what happened see two likely connections to human-caused climate change. One is that warmer air holds and then dumps more rain. The other is possible changes in the jet stream — the river of air above land that moves weather systems across the globe — that spawn extreme weather.
Climate scientists and meteorologists said the immediate cause of the flooding is called a cut-off lower-pressure storm system that migrated from an unusually wavy and stalled jet stream. That system simply parked over the region and poured rain. This happens often enough that in Spain they call them DANAs, the Spanish acronym for the system, meteorologists said.
And then there is the unusually high temperature of the Mediterranean Sea. It had its warmest surface temperature on record in mid-August, at 28.47 degrees Celsius (83.25 degrees Fahrenheit), said Carola Koenig of the Centre for Flood Risk and Resilience at Brunel University of London.
The extreme weather event came after Spain battled with prolonged droughts in 2022 and 2023. Experts say that drought and flood cycles are increasing with climate change.
“Climate change kills, and now, unfortunately, we are seeing it firsthand,” Sánchez said Tuesday after announcing a 10.6-billion-euro relief package for 78 municipalities. |
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A man who threatened to kill Democratic election officials pleads guilty
Blog Updates |
2024/10/29 08:50
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A Colorado man repeatedly made online threats about killing the top elections officials in his state and Arizona — both Democrats — as well as a judge and law enforcement agents, according to a guilty plea he entered Wednesday.
Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, acknowledged to a federal judge in Denver that his comments were made “out of fear, hate and anger,” as he sat dressed in a khaki jail uniform before pleading guilty to one count of transmitting interstate threats. He faces up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced on Feb. 3.
Brockbank’s case is the 16th conviction secured by the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which Attorney General Merrick Garland formed in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting the election community.
Earlier this year, French actor Judith Godrèche called on France’s film industry to “face the truth” on sexual violence and physical abuse during the Cesar Awards ceremony, France’s version of the Oscars. “We can decide that men accused of rape no longer rule the (French) cinema,” Godrèche said.
“As we approach Election Day, the Justice Department’s warning remains clear: anyone who illegally threatens an election worker, official, or volunteer will face the consequences,” Garland said in a statement.
Brockbank did not elaborate Wednesday on the threats he made, and court documents outlining the plea agreement were not immediately made public. His lawyer Thomas Ward declined to comment after the hearing.
However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado said in statement that the plea agreement included the threats Brockbank made against the election officials — identified in evidence as Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state’s governor.
Griswold has been outspoken nationally on elections security and has received threats in the past over her insistence that the 2020 election was secure. Her office says she has gotten more frequent and more violent threats since September 2023, when a group of voters filed a lawsuit attempting to remove former President Donald Trump from Colorado’s primary ballot.
“I refuse to be intimidated and will continue to make sure every eligible Republican, Democrat, and Unaffiliated voter can make their voices heard in our elections,” Griswold said in a statement issued after Brockbank’s plea.
Investigators say Brockbank began to express the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021. According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators after his arrest that he’s not a “vigilante” and hoped his posts would simply “wake people up.” He has been jailed since his Aug. 23 arrest in Cortez, Colorado.
Brockbank criticized the government’s response to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted this year for allowing a breach of her election system inspired by false claims about election fraud in the 2020 presidential race, according to court documents. He also was upset in December 2023 after a divided Colorado Supreme Court removed Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot.
In one social media post in August 2022, referring to Griswold and Hobbs, Brockbank said: “Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other,” according to copies of the threats included in court documents. In September 2021, Brockbank said Griswold needed to “hang by the neck till she is Dead Dead Dead,” saying he and other “every day people” needed to hold her and others accountable, prosecutors said. |
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