Z Election Gazette 01 – Feature

Pelosi is on the brink of sending the impeachment articles – POLITICO

Excerpt:

HERE’S WHAT’S CLEAR if you talk to House and Senate Democratic insiders: Speaker NANCY PELOSI is on the brink of ending her hold of the impeachment articles. The House is going to send them to the Senate in the near…

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Pelosi says House to vote this week on war powers resolution to limit Trump’s action on Iran – The Washington Post

Excerpt:

Pelosi said lawmakers were concerned that the Trump administration acted without consulting Congress and without respect for the constitutional authority Congress has to declare war.

She said the House would introduce and vote on a resolution similar to one that Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced in the Senate last week.

“It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days,” Pelosi said.

Freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.),…

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The 1,552 NJ Superintendents, Principals Earning $150K Or More – Point Pleasant, NJ Patch

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NEW JERSEY – Superintendent and principal salaries continue to rise, and making at least $150,000 a year is no longer uncommon for administrators in New Jersey. In fact, more than 1,500 superintendents and principals made $150,000 or more in 2019, even if their district had only one school.

Patch has the list of 1,552 top-earning superintendents and principals and their salaries below.

The Department of Education recently released its annual list of superintendents and principals and their salaries before the start of the 2019-20 school year. And the list of educators making $150,000 or…

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06n Newswatches

Vulnerable House Democrats Remain Hesitant to Back Articles of Impeachment – Newsweek

Moderate Democrats who hail from swing districts are exercising extreme caution when it comes to showing support for the two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump unveiled Tuesday by the House. Asked whether they plan to support the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress articles, which allege Trump "betrayed the nation" in "corruptly soliciting" election aid from Ukraine and engaged in "unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance" of Congress, several Democrats opted to reserve judgement until they've more thoroughly reviewed the text and given thought to the matter. "The seriousness of the decision for me—it's probably the most serious consideration I'll give anything that I've considered my one year in Congress," said Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA analyst. "I'm not going to be pushed one way or another. I have lots of people lobbying me, but I'm going to do what I was trained to do as national security professional and as an intelligence officer, which is make my own decision based on what I think is right."

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Red State Senate Democrats Not Yet Convinced They Will Vote to Convict Trump on Articles of Impeachment – Breitbart

If the House of Representatives does end up passing Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump, setting up a U.S. Senate trial, there is no guarantee that Democrats in the Senate will be unified behind convicting President Trump in the upper chamber of Congress. A spokeswoman for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told Breitbart News on Monday that the red state Democrat has not yet made up his mind on whether he would vote to convict Trump in the Senate. “He hasn’t made up his mind and he’s waiting on the articles to come to the Senate,”

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Some moderate Democrats feel frustrated over impeachment – KXLY Spokane

group of moderate Democrats are growing impatient with leadership, warning that any effort to include charges that the President obstructed justice in potential articles of impeachment could severely hurt the frontline members who help make a majority of the caucus.

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Roberts seems to hold key to first Supreme Court case over gun rights in 9 years – WJLA

Chief Justice John Roberts appeared Monday to be the key vote in whether the Supreme Court considers expanding gun rights or sidesteps its first case on the issue in nearly 10 years. The court’s dismissal of the case would be a disappointment to gun-rights advocates and a huge relief to gun-control groups. Both sides thought a conservative Supreme Court majority fortified by two appointees of President Donald Trump, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, might use the case to expand on landmark decisions from a decade ago that established a right to keep a gun at home for self-defense. The arguments dealt with a dispute over New York City restrictions on taking licensed, locked and unloaded guns outside the city limits. New York has dropped its transport ban, but only after the high court decided in January to hear the case.

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On Trump impeachment, divisions between urban and rural Democrats – Reuters

Axne, 54, avoided any mention of impeachment until one of her constituents, a Democrat who voted for her, said he views the investigation as a waste of time and money: “Let’s not vote for impeachment. Let’s get stuff done. I’m sick of it!”, he bellowed. Others nodded in agreement. Meanwhile, 1,000 miles away in the old industrial town of Wharton, New Jersey, freshman U.S. congressman Tom Malinowksi was treated like a rock star when he told a crowd of about 150 he believed the evidence to impeach Trump was overwhelming. With each mention of impeachment and denunciation of Trump, Malinowski was greeted with loud applause from voters packed into a tiny library basement, where the room hummed with talk of ousting the president. These two freshman lawmakers flipped districts from Republican control in the 2018 midterm congressional elections, two of the 41 net gains that helped Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 2011. Yet on impeachment, as they face close fights for their seats again next November, their approach is starkly different. Axne avoids any mention of it; Malinowski leans into the topic.

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Edwards wins in Louisiana – Politico

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards won reelection in Louisiana, defeating Republican Eddie Rispone, even after President Donald Trump went all out for the Republican candidate.

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Senate Republicans plan to ignore impeachment hearings – POLITICO

As top diplomats William Taylor and George Kent prepare to appear before the House in the first public phase of the inquiry, few senators said they had plans to watch most of the testimony on Wednesday. And though Democrats and a handful of Republicans said they would try to play catch-up if they couldn't monitor in real time, a significant portion of the Senate GOP said they have no plans to watch at all. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he’s going to “be paying attention to what we’re doing in the Senate.” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 GOP...

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Stakes are high as Supreme Court prepares to hear DACA arguments – WJLA

The Supreme Court is set to hear opening arguments Tuesday that will determine whether the Trump administration has the legal authority to end protections for more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. The hearing before the Supreme Court is the culmination of more than two years of legal battles fought by hundreds of organizations, institutions and individuals challenging the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's September 2017 decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The Trump Justice Department attempted to bring the DACA issue before the Supreme Court twice. The court finally agreed to consider the government's appeal on the third try.

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Bevin asks for a recanvass in Kentucky – Politico

NO CONCESSION — Bevin is not giving up without a fight. “Speaking before reporters Wednesday night in Frankfort, the state capital, Bevin said his campaign would be seeking an official recanvass of the results — but it is also compiling evidence of ‘irregularities’ in the voting process to be investigated,” Campaign Pro’s Steve Shepard reported. “Without providing details, Bevin cited ‘thousands of absentee ballots that were illegally counted,’ reports of voters being ‘incorrectly turned away’ from polling places and ‘a number of machines that didn’t work properly.’ He said his campaign would provide more information as it is gathered, and he did not take questions from reporters,” Steve wrote.

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The blue wave skips New Jersey as Democrats lose legislative seats – The Philadelphia Inquirer

It seems the blue wave missed New Jersey. Republicans fared better than expected Tuesday night in an election where all 80 seats in the General Assembly were at stake, plus one in the state Senate. This was one of the few election contests nationwide that didn’t go well for Democrats. They won’t lose their control of the Assembly, having held a 54-26 majority going into election night. But experts predict Republicans will add two to four seats when the new legislative session begins next year. The lone Senate seat on the ballot flipped from Democratic to Republican. “It’s a great starting-off point,” Douglas Steinhardt, New Jersey GOP chairman, said Wednesday. “It should make Republicans hungry for 2020 and 2021."

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Pres. Trump demands whistleblower testify in person – KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2

With the impeachment cloud looming, President Donald Trump is demanding a whistleblower’s identity to be revealed. In a tweet Monday morning the president said in part, “The Whistleblower gave false information & dealt with corrupt politician Schiff. He must be brought forward to testify. Written answers not acceptable!” Some House Republicans like Mark Meadows are pushing to have the whistleblower testify in person. “I can’t imagine that Chairman Schiff would allow written questions and answers for all of his witnesses,” Meadows said.

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Experts: Trump, graduated tax could drive high turnout in 2020 – Bloomington Pantagraph

With the fall election a year away, three political scientists expect the possible reelection of Republican President Donald Trump and the prospect of a graduated income tax for Illinois to motivate voters across party lines. "I have a feeling, and I'm really hoping I'm right, that turnout is going to be huge, maybe upwards of 65 or 70 percent," said Bob Bradley, professor emeritus of political science at Illinois State University, Normal. "More people seem to in tune with what's going on and feel that they need to vote."

06n Newswatches

Divided House approves Dems’ impeachment rules – PIX11 New York

Democrats swept a rules package for their impeachment probe of President Donald Trump through a divided House Thursday, as the chamber's first vote on the investigation highlighted the partisan breach the issue has only deepened. By 232-196, lawmakers approved the procedures they'll follow as weeks of closed-door interviews with witnesses evolve into public committee hearings and — almost certainly — votes on whether the House should recommend Trump's removal.

00 Front Page Election Gazette

After Facebook comes under fire, Twitter’s CEO announces ban on political ads – Yahoo News

Twitter announced on Wednesday that it would no longer allow political ads on its service, in an implicit response to Facebook’s policy of allowing political ads even if they contain false information. “We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally,” wrote CEO Jack Dorsey in a series of messages Wednesday. “We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons. A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money. “While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions. Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.”

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Polls: Impeachment, Removal of President Unpopular in Battleground States – Breitbart

Two recent polls show that the effort by Democrats to impeach and remove President Trump from office is unpopular with a majority of voters in several key battleground states. Those results may loom large in the minds of Democrat members of the House of Representatives from those states as they consider how they will cast their ballots when a vote on impeachment proceedings comes to the floor of the House on Thursday. One poll, conducted by Marquette Law, measured voter sentiment on impeachment in Wisconsin, while a second poll, conducted by The New York Times Upshot/Siena College,...

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Democrats Will Vote To Formalize Their Impeachment Inquiry, And Hearings Will Be Public Soon – BuzzFeed News

The House of Representatives will vote on a resolution formalizing its impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump this week, following attacks from Republicans and the White House and just days after a judge ruled there was no legal requirement to do so. “For weeks, the President, his Counsel in the White House, and his allies in Congress have made the baseless claim that the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry ‘lacks the necessary authorization for a valid impeachment proceeding,’” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to her caucus...

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Rep. Katie Hill announces resignation – Kokomo Perspective

Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) announced her resignation from Congress days after she admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with a campaign staffer before coming into office.

06n Newswatches

Trump stays, but the Senate goes: Republican majority threatened by impeachment – Washington Examiner

Senate Republicans stand to be the biggest casualty of impeachment, since they face losing their three-seat majority as struggling candidates are forced to cast a vote that will anger critical groups of voters, no matter which way they go. Democrats are targeting President Trump. What they may get instead is the Senate.

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Judge’s order releasing Trump’s tax returns and blasting ‘repugnant’ immunity claim put on hold – Reuters

A federal judge on Monday said eight years of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax returns must be provided to Manhattan prosecutors, forcefully rejecting the president’s argument that he was immune from criminal investigations. Trump’s returns will not be turned over immediately, after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan granted the president’s request to temporarily block the order, handed down by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.

00 Front Page Election Gazette

Iranians tried to hack U.S. presidential campaign in effort that targeted hundreds, Microsoft says – Washington Post

The intrusion observed by Microsoft, spearheaded by an outfit it calls Phosphorus, made more than 2,700 attempts to identify personal email addresses that belonged to the company’s customers over a 30-day period between August and September, 241 of which were then attacked. Four were compromised, but they do not belong to the presidential campaign or government officials, according to the tech giant.