VA Youngkin Uses State of the Commonwealth to Stump for Abortion Ban

RICHMOND, VA – On Wednesday, Governor Glenn Youngkin took to the floor of the Virginia House of Delegates to continue pushing his far-right ban on reproductive freedom in his State of the Commonwealth address. Ignoring the clarion call of Virginians from Tuesday night’s election of Senator-elect Aaron Rouse, Glenn Youngkin pushed ahead with his anti-choice agenda.

With an expanded majority in the Virginia Senate, Democrats are answering their mandate to lead the fight against Glenn Youngkin’s accelerated attempts to restrict access to women’s healthcare.

The Governor also used the occasion of the State of the Commonwealth to champion his personal 2024 presidential ambitions, ignoring opportunities to advance gun safety legislation in the wake of recent school shootings in the Commonwealth and instead focusing on attacking President Biden with his typical MAGA talking points.



https://bluevirginia.us/2023/01/youngkin-uses-state-of-the-commonwealth-to-stump-for-abortion-ban

VA-04: McClellan Rips Gov. Youngkin "turn[ing] away business investment and jobs from Ford Motor Co.

RICHMOND – Today, Sen. Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond) released the following statement on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s decision to withdraw Virginia from consideration for a Ford Motor Company battery manufacturing plant over his criticism of China and clean energy. The multi-billion dollar facility would have provided lithium iron phosphate batteries for Ford’s electric vehicles.

“Following the passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020, we’ve seen a massive spike in clean energy job creation and economic investment in Virginia,” McClellan said. “Our clean energy policies make Virginia a beacon for one of the fastest growing industries in America and a home for thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs. It is deeply disappointing that Governor Youngkin would turn away business investment and jobs from Ford Motor Company, due to political considerations and a new obsession with China. It’s clear that the Governor has put his personal politics above jobs for Virginia communities.

“Other Republican and Democratic governors are in a race to bring clean energy jobs to their states, yet Governor Youngkin refuses to compete. This follows the Governor’s refusal to join a bipartisan offshore wind energy coalition, despite the booming offshore wind industry in Hampton Roads. Virginia has moved from the back of the pack to become a national leader in clean energy – creating jobs along the way. I will continue fighting for those jobs and opportunities, regardless of the Governor’s political games.”



https://bluevirginia.us/2023/01/va-sen-jennifer-mcclellan-rips-gov-youngkin-turning-away-business-investment-and-jobs-from-ford-motor-company-due-to-political-considerations-and-a-new-obsession-with-china

CA-SEN: Ro Khanna says he's looking at the Senate. His allies are talking about the White House.

Rep. Ro Khanna said on Wednesday that he’s weighing a Senate bid in California.

But recent moves have sparked a new round of speculation among Democrats in several key states that the California congressman continues to have his eye on a higher office.

Khanna has retained consultants who are veterans of New Hampshire’s primary and Nevada’s. He paid one Iowa firm as well, before the Democratic National Committee made plans to revoke the state’s first-in-the-nation status. He’s also begun to more forcefully draw contrasts with potential political rivals, chief among them transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Those close to Khanna say he’s keeping his options open ahead of a potential presidential run in 2028 or beyond. But others in his orbit are talking about an even more compressed timeline: running in 2024 if President Joe Biden decided not to.

“I think he would be a great United States senator,” said Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist whose firm did media consulting for Khanna last year. “But I also think, should Biden decide not to run, I think he’s a very plausible candidate for president of the United States. So I think that those decisions are yet to be made.”




https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/12/ro-khanna-says-hes-looking-at-the-senate-his-allies-are-talking-about-the-white-house-00077672

Santos even had a suspended driver's license.

In late 2021, an opposition research firm hired by Santos’ team to conduct a “vulnerability study” on the candidate found no evidence of Santos’ purported degrees from Baruch College and New York University, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The company did find records of evictions, a suspended Florida driver’s license, his involvement with a company accused of a Ponzi scheme, and that the openly gay candidate had been married to a woman, the news outlet reported.

The research firm’s findings startled some members of Santos’ team so much so that they urged him to drop out of the race, according to the report.


https://nypost.com/2023/01/14/george-santos-dismissed-calls-to-drop-out-after-startling-background-check/

Santos's Lies Were Known to Some Well-Connected Republicans

In late 2021, as he prepared to make a second run for a suburban New York City House seat, George Santos gave permission for his campaign to commission a routine background study on him.

Campaigns frequently rely on this kind of research, known as vulnerability studies, to identify anything problematic that an opponent might seize on. But when the report came back on Mr. Santos, the findings by a Washington research firm were far more startling, suggesting a pattern of deception that cut to the heart of the image he had cultivated as a wealthy financier.

Some of Mr. Santos’s own vendors were so alarmed after seeing the study in late November 2021 that they urged him to drop out of the race, and warned that he could risk public humiliation by continuing. When Mr. Santos disputed key findings and vowed to continue running, members of the campaign team quit, according to three of the four people The New York Times spoke to with knowledge of the study.

The episode, which has not been previously reported, is the most explicit evidence to date that a small circle of well-connected Republican campaign professionals had indications far earlier than the public that Mr. Santos was spinning an elaborate web of deceits, and that the candidate himself had been warned about just how vulnerable those lies were to unraveling.






https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/nyregion/george-santos-republicans-lies.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Idaho Republican 'Deeply Sorry' For Comparing Human Women To Dairy Cows

Earlier this week, newly minted Republican Idaho state Rep. Jack Nelson (R-Jerome) went to his very first meeting of the state House Agricultural Affairs Committee, where he introduced himself by saying “I’ve milked a few cows, spent most of my time walking behind lines of cows, so if you want some ideas on repro and the women’s health thing, I have some definite opinions.”

He then laughed at what he thought was his own very funny joke.

Surprisingly enough, the comparison of women to farm animals did not go over particularly well, resulting in a whole lot of criticism both in op-eds and on social media.

“The way I phrased my statement about women and reproductive rights yesterday completely missed the mark,” Nelson said in an emailed statement to the Idaho Statesman. “I am deeply sorry. I recognize the mistake and commit to doing better in the future."




https://www.wonkette.com/idaho-jack-nelson-women-cows-abortion

George Santos Raised Money for Company the SEC Says Was a Ponzi Scheme

WASHINGTON—Embattled Rep. George Santos persuaded at least one person to make a six-figure investment in a Florida-based company that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later said was a Ponzi scheme, according to people familiar with the matter and documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Santos was hired in 2020 to raise capital for the company, Harbor City Capital, and landed at least one significant investment from a wealthy investor, the people said. When the investment failed to deliver on the promised returns, according to one of the people, Mr. Santos sought to reassure the investor by saying he had personally raised nearly $100 million and had invested his own family’s money in Harbor City.

Mr. Santos, a 34-year-old freshman Republican member of Congress from Long Island, is facing calls to resign from Democrats and a number of New York Republicans amid investigations into his campaign finances and lies he told during his campaign, pertaining to his education, work history, wealth, ancestry and other matters. The Republicans’ narrow majority in the House made his vote crucial for the election of Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

Mr. Santos has admitted to lying about working at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. but has defended his experience in the financial-services sector, saying in one interview: “I did work in the industry for a number of years.”

Mr. Santos’s financial-industry experience, according to his résumé, included a job in 2017 with a company that organized conferences for money managers and private-wealth investors, as well as his 2020 stint at Harbor City Capital. Harbor City has been in receivership since soon after the SEC accused it of being a Ponzi scheme in a 2021 civil lawsuit. Mr. Santos was paid for work he did at Harbor City, according to the receiver, Katherine Donlon. She declined to comment further on Mr. Santos’s work for Harbor City.




https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-santos-raised-money-for-company-the-sec-says-was-a-ponzi-scheme-11673669864

Tweet of the Weekend

Introducing Miss USA

Trump Said Accuser Thought It 'Sexy to Be Raped'

Donald Trump claimed that E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of sexual assault, said that “rape was sexy” and “indicated that she loved it” when he was deposed in connection to her defamation lawsuit in October, Insider reports.

Said Trump: “She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until the commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn’t she? She said it was very sexy to be raped.”

Trump was misrepresenting comments Carroll made about why she doesn’t like to use the word rape in a 2019 interview.



https://politicalwire.com/2023/01/14/trump-said-accuser-thought-it-sexy-to-be-raped/