Spanberger A GOV
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SOTU REBUT 2 26
ELECTED IN DEM SWEEP? PAL IN NJ MIKEY
RUNNING GOV VS YOUNKIN
blue wave, narrow win, many dirty tricks ~ brat TP star beaten
JOK OPPO? AM RISING
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AN 3 26
Republicans are attempting to rewrite the narrative of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but Virginia is not letting that narrative permeate public classrooms.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the Virginia state governor will likely sign a measure that was passed by the state House of Delegates and Senate that bars any public schools from teaching that the attack was a "peaceful" protest. President Donald Trump has long maintained that the violence was peaceful. Other Republicans have referred to it as nothing more than a "tourist visit."
One lawmaker complained that the White House webpage calls January 6 "a peaceful protest, and people who instigated it were the police and National Guard,” said Delegate Dan Helmer (D).
“This is a preventative measure against a massive disinformation campaign on the part of the White House," he added.
Republicans are calling it "mind control," the report said.
"It tells us what we’re not allowed to say, and it tells us what we must say,” complained Del. Tom Garrett (R) in a floor speech. He said that the bill was "evil" and akin to "Nazi Germany" and "Soviet Russia."
In 2022, Virginia's Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed new teaching requirements for those discussing the history of the U.S. around slavery and the Native Americans. Laws in Germany today bar expressions of Holocaust denialism in public.
Trump pardoned 1,500 people charged with crimes related to Jan. 6, even if they accepted their guilt.
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MMA
Fox & Friends really does not want viewers to understand that Trump’s tariffs are taxes paid by Americans
Donald Trump illegally raised your taxes. Fox would rather not talk about it.
Written by Craig Harrington
Published 02/25/26
For the second time in a week, a Fox News personality went to bat to protect President Donald Trump from the fallout of the Supreme Court overturning his unpopular tariff policies, falsely reassuring viewers that they are not paying for Trump’s import tax scheme.
During two February 25 segments of Fox & Friends, co-host Lawrence Jones responded to criticism of Trump’s tariff policies by repeatedly (and falsely) telling viewers that the president’s critics were lying when saying his tariffs had cost American families money over the past year. His comments followed a segment last week wherein Fox host Harris Faulkner had wondered aloud whether foreign countries would seek refunds for tariffs they paid to the U.S. — before she was informed that tariffs are taxes paid by American consumers, not foreign exporters.
During today’s Fox & Friends segment, the hosts aired a portion of newly inaugurated Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s
to Trump’s State of the Union speech where she said that “everyday Americans are paying the price” of Trump’s tariffs and described his latest tariff proposal “another massive tax hike on you and your family.” Jones scolded Spanberger: “Just to be clear, what she said is 100% false,” claiming that “there has been zero inflation based on the tariffs” and that “you cannot say that it caused inflation on the American people.”
Video
Citation
From the February 25, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
Later, Jones returned to the topic during a segment with pollsters Kellyanne Conway and Mark Penn, discussing a portion of Spanberger’s rebuttal when the governor noted that Trump’s “reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.” Jones responded that Spanberger's statement was “not true” and again added that tariffs had not been inflationary. Conway was even more direct, simply claiming, “Those are lies.”
Jones wrapped up his performative outrage by acting aghast that Spanberger would claim tariffs cost American families money. “To say it was inflationary, that it's costing you more money, the data doesn't support that, yet she told the people that,” he said.
Video
Citation
From the February 25, 2026, edition of Fox NewsFox & Friends
Americans are absolutely paying the cost of Trump’s tariffs.
As economists and experts have repeatedly explained, foreign countries do not pay tariffs. Tariffs are import taxes paid by American consumers.
Trump massively increased tariff receipts compared to 2024, raising a record-breaking amount of tariff revenue in his first year in office. The money had to come from somewhere.
And last November, The Budget Lab at Yale estimated that Trump's tariff policies had at that point cost the average American family roughly $1,700. An analysis by the Joint Economic Committee's minority staff released just last week estimated that “American consumers overall paid more than $231 billion in tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, an average of roughly $1,745 per family.”
Far from misleading viewers with her speech, Spanberger actually did Trump a favor by rounding the cost of his tariffs down.
And this isn’t just a question about whether or not tariffs are generally inflationary (they are) or whether Trump’s tariffs have shown up in consumer prices (they have). This is about real costs that have been passed along to actual Americans as a result of Donald Trump illegally raising their taxes.
//
02/20/26 4:46 PM EST
10/17/25 3:58 PM EDT
07/15/25 2:19 PM EDT
11/14/25 12:02 PM EST
10/07/25 10:04 AM EDT
08/12/25
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AN 11 25 ALL 3 WON PLUS PA SCOTUS
The November 4 elections found Democrats enjoying a mini-blue wave as their candidates enjoyed a long list of victories — including double-digit wins in Virginia's gubernatorial race (former Rep. Abigail Spanberger), New Jersey's gubernatorial race (Rep. Mikie Sherrill) and New York City's mayoral race (State Assemblyman Zohran Mandami). Those races were called by the Associated Press (AP) as well as CNN and ABC News.
Spanberger, according to AP, defeated her GOP opponent, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by roughly 13 percent. But according to GOP pollster Frank Luntz, the size of Spanberger's victory is reflected by not only the total numbers, but the individual counties.
On X, formerly Twitter, Luntz posted, "Every single county in Virginia shifted blueward tonight."
Luntz posted a county-by-county breakdown for Virginia, a key swing state. And even in the counties that Earle-Sears won, Spanberger posted far larger numbers compared to Democratic candidates of the past.
For example, Earle-Sears carried Salem County by 12 percent, but according to Luntz, that's a 6.9 percent improvement for the Democratic Party in that red county.
Spanberger, according to Luntz, won Portsmouth County by 47 percent (an 8.1 percent swing for Democrats) and Prince William County by 34 percent (a 16 percent blue shift).
In Virginia's House of Delegates, Democrats built on their current majority, now holding 64 seats to Republicans' 36. This means that Virginia Democrats' goal of passing a redistricting map to counter Republican mid-decade redistricting in Texas and elsewhere is likely to pass, with Spanberger giving Democrats a trifecta.
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AN 7 25
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an 6 25
Donald Trump suffered a major setback during his first presidency when Democrats flipped the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms and enjoyed a net gain of 41 seats. Now, with Trump serving a nonconsecutive second term, Democrats are looking to the 2026 midterms and hoping for another blue wave.
But The Nation's John Nichols, in an article published on June 9, stresses that for Democrats, the path to defeating Trumpism doesn't start in 2026 — it starts with the elections being held this year.
In 2025, elections range from gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey to special elections in the U.S. House of Representatives to state legislature races. In Philadelphia, progressive Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner is almost certain to win a third term after defeating a primary challenger by double digits.
READ MORE: Trump's latest move is a danger to all of us
"Trump’s approval ratings have tanked, and protests over his administration’s attacks on science, health care, immigrants, judges, and anyone else who gets in his way take place nearly every day," Nichols observes. "While the turn against Trump and Trumpism is glaringly evident, it is equally evident that this president is a master of self-deception. And while Trump has a history of denying election results, Republicans won't be able to spin their way out of serious electoral setbacks if they come in 2025."
Nichols continues, "In Virginia, where Republicans won every statewide race in 2021, control of the House of Delegates is up for grabs. If Democrats win there as part of a broader sweep of New Jersey and the rest of the country's odd-year election map, it will send a devastating message to the (Trump) Administration."
In New Jersey, Democrats and Republicans haven't chosen their gubernatorial candidates yet. Many New Jersey Democrats are feeling bullish about Rep. Mike Sherrill (D-New Jersey), believing she could be quite competitive against GOP gubernatorial hopeful Jack Cittarelli (who Trump has endorsed even though he was critical of Trump in the past).
Meanwhile, in Virginia, Democrats have already settled on former Rep. Abigail Spanberger as their 2025 gubernatorial nominee.
READ MORE:'Not heading anywhere good': NYT reporter sounds alarm on Trump's military move in LA
"Virginia Democrats know what’s at stake," Nichols explains. "For the first time since 2013, they united behind a single gubernatorial candidate, former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, before the state's spring primary. And for the first time in decades, the party has fielded candidates in all 100 races for the (Virginia) State House of Delegates. One of the reasons for this is a concerted organizing effort by Dr. Fergie Reid Jr., a retired physician and the son of Dr. William Ferguson Reid, the pioneering civil rights activist who in 1967 unseated a segregationist to become Virginia’s first Black delegate since Reconstruction."
Nichols adds, "The senior Reid turned 100 in March and urged Virginia Democrats to honor his longevity by filling ballot lines in every legislative contest. But it was more than nostalgia that helped them achieve a full slate. As Reid Jr. told the Virginia Mercury, 'Virginia is the first opportunity for really any state in the United States to answer back to what’s going on in Washington right now. It's going to send a big, loud message to the rest of the country and to the world that not everybody in America is with Trump.'"
Nichols describes Virginia and New Jersey as "the most important electoral dominoes in 2025."
"If they fall to the Democrats, and if other contests this November follow suit," Nichols observes, "that could significantly boost Democratic recruitment, fundraising, and organizing prospects in the 2026 midterm races for control of Congress."
READ MORE:'Can't you just shoot them?' Inside Trump's threat to deal with 'radical left thugs' in America
*Read John Nichols' full article for The Nation at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Spanberger 7 22
- won 50-48%
an 9 24
One Republican U.S. House candidate is publicly coming out against one of former President Donald Trump's policy proposals, particularly due to its negative impact on the economy of the district he hopes to represent.
According to CNBC, Army veteran and attorney Derrick Anderson is opposed to the ex-president's plan to move roughly 100,000 federal government jobs out of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and fire untold scores of public sector workers he describes as "rogue bureaucrats." Anderson told the outlet that he would "oppose any legislation that could weaken national security, raise the cost of living, or hurt VA-7 jobs, regardless of where it comes from."
Roughly 60,000 of the workers who would be affected by that policy live in Virginia's 7th Congressional District, accounting for a whopping 15% of its residents. CNBC reported that even more residents of the district are federal government contractors who would also likely be impacted by massive changes to the federal civil service.
READ MORE:Trump's plan to 'aggressively' reshape government would create 'army of suck-ups': report
George Mason University public policy professor Terry Clower told CNBC that uprooting tens of thousands of government workers would have a particularly detrimental impact on the commonwealth's economy, saying that their economic contributions account for roughly $27 billion to $28 billion of Virginia's annual economic activity. He added that for every federal government job created in any community, another 0.6 jobs are created in the area as a result of the economic output of that worker. This would mean that cutting 100,000 jobs would lead to a larger loss of roughly 160,000 total jobs.
"“If all of them completely left Virginia in terms of output, that would probably be about 5% of gross state product,” he said. “That’s, by modern terms, a fairly severe recession that that would cause.”
According to USA Facts, the Old Dominion State's economy is one of the largest in the country, posting more than $728 billion in total output just in 2023 alone. When breaking that down by industry, over $117 billion of that comes from government and government enterprises.
Vindman – the brother of Trump-era whistleblower Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — and Anderson are both in agreement in their opposition to Trump's plan to cut large numbers of government jobs. He told CNBC that Trump's proposal would not only be "fundamentally unfair, but devastating to this areas because you’re talking about thousands and tens of thousands pretty well paid jobs – it would be horrible."
The 7th district's current member of Congress is Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia), and it's considered one of the most competitive races in November due to its reputation as a swing seat. The race is now a wide-open contest between Anderson and Lt. Col. Eugene Vindman, who is the Democratic nominee, after Spanberger announced her candidacy for Virginia's 2025 gubernatorial election.
Prior to electing Spanberger in 2018, the district had been represented by far-right Rep. Dave Brat (R-Virginia), and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) before Brat defeated him in the 2014 Republican primary.
Click here to read CNBC's full report.
READ MORE:'Essence of authoritarianism': Expert warns 'Project 2025' would create a Trump 'autocracy'
Abigail Anne Spanberger[1] (née Davis, August 7, 1979) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from Virginia's 7th congressional district since 2019. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Her district includes most of the northern suburbs of Richmond, as well as some exurban territory around Fredericksburg.Spanberger is a former CIA officer.[2]
Spanberger defeated Republican incumbent Dave Brat in 2018, ending the Republican Party's 36-year hold on the district. She was reelected to a second term in 2020.[3]
- 1Early life and education
Early life and education
Abigail Spanberger was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, on August 7, 1979.[4] When she was 13, her family relocated to the Short Pump area in Henrico County, outside Richmond. She attended John Randolph Tucker High School.[2] Spanberger was later a page for U.S. Senator Chuck Robb.[2]
Spanberger earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from a joint program between the GISMA Business School in Germany and Purdue University's Krannert School of Management.[2]
Early career
In 2002 and 2003, Spanberger taught English literature as a substitute teacher at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia.[5] In the early 2000s, she was a postal inspector, working on money laundering and narcotics cases.[6]
In 2006, Spanberger joined the Central Intelligence Agency as an operations officer.[7] She said she gathered intelligence about nuclear proliferation and terrorism.[8]
In 2014, Spanberger left the CIA and entered the private sector. She was hired by Royall & Company (now ...United xxx States House of Representatives in Virginia's 7th congressional district in the 2018 election against incumbent Republican Dave Brat, a Tea Party movement member.[11][12][13] She made the final decision to run after the House of Representatives voted to repeal theAffordable Care Act.[6] On June 12, 2018, Spanberger defeated Dan Ward in the Democratic primary election with 73% of the vote, receiving more votes than any other candidate in the Virginia primaries that day.[14][15]Her campaign outraised Brat's.[16]
In August, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, conducted a smear campaign against Spanberger. The smear campaign, which attempted to tie her to terrorism, was based on an SF-86 application she completed to obtain security clearance, which was inappropriately released in breach of privacy rules.[17] She won the November 6 general election by just over 6,600 votes.[18] While Brat won eight of the district's ten counties, Spanberger dominated the two largest counties, Henrico and Chesterfield, by a combined margin of over 30,000 votes.[19]
In a visit to the district, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon described it as "an absolute bellwether of the entire country", adding that losing the district would mean the GOP losing control of the House.[20]
A number of sources claimed Spanberger was the first Democrat to win this seat since 1970, when four-term Democrat John Marsh retired and was succeeded by Republican J. Kenneth Robinson.[21] But until 1993, the 7th stretched from the outer Washington suburbs through the Shenandoah Valley and Charlottesville to the outer Richmond suburbs;[22] the present 7th is geographically and demographically the successor to what was the 3rd district before 1993.[23]
2020
See also: 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia § District 7
Spanberger faced a close reelection contest against State Delegate Nick Freitas, who represents much of the congressional district's northern portion. She won with 51% of the vote to Freitas's 49%. Freitas carried eight of the district's ten counties, as Brat had done two years earlier. But Spanberger again prevailed by winning the district's shares of Henrico and Chesterfield counties by a combined 43,400 votes, five times her overall margin of 8,400 votes.[24] She was also boosted by Joe Biden narrowly carrying the district;[25] Biden is the first Democrat to win what is now the 7th since 1948.
On November 5, days after winning reelection by a margin of 1.8%,[26] Spanberger criticized the Democratic Party's strategy for the 2020 elections in a phone call with other Democratic caucus members that was subsequently leaked.[27] Calling the elections "a failure" from a congressional standpoint, she singled out Republican attack ads decrying "socialism" and the movement to "defund the police" as prime reasons the Democratic Party lost seats in swing districts. She argued that Democrats should watch Republican ads before deciding how to talk about issues and "not ever use the word 'socialist' or 'socialism' ever again".[28]
CNN political editor Chris Cillizza described Spanberger's remarks as "some hard truth" for the Democratic Party, adding that in order to succeed in the 2022 and 2024 elections, the party should "listen to the likes of Spanberger" instead of pushing for "the boldest possible progressive legislation".[29] Spanberger's remarks were disputed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who noted that Democrats kept the House, and progressive Representative Rashida Tlaib, who said the Democratic Party should "study the results" before dismissing progressives who represent their districts.[28] The Washington Post digital editor James Downie criticized Spanberger's view, remarking that if a losing officeholder "couldn't manage to tie his or her Republican opponent to almost a quarter of a million COVID-19 deaths in the United States, a tanked economy or a dozen other policy fiascos, that's the candidate's fault."[30] Downie quoted progressive Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had noted that no swing-district House Democrat who co-sponsored Medicare for All lost their seat, and had remarked in response to Spanberger's comments that "not a single member of Congress that I'm aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election."[30][31]
Committee assignments
Spanberger's committee assignments include:[32][33]
Caucus memberships
Political positions
Some commentators have characterized Spanberger as a centrist Democrat.[37][38]
In the election for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on the opening day of the 116th United States Congress, Spanberger voted for U.S. Representative Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat, joining 11 other Democrats who did not back Nancy Pelosi.[39]
Abortion
Spanberger supports legal abortion.[40]
Economy
Although not a member of Congress when it passed, Spanberger criticized the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act supported by President Donald Trump, arguing that its permanent tax cuts for corporations would increase the national debt.[40]
Spanberger has called for the passage of the USMCA trade deal negotiated between the Trump administration, Mexico, and Canada.[41][42]
In May 2020, Spanberger voted against the HEROES Act, a proposed $3 trillion stimulus package in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[43] She said the bill went "far beyond" pandemic relief and had no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.[44] In November 2020, Spanberger led a bipartisan effort to secure the340B Drug Pricing Program against changes that would lead to significant increases in prescription medication costs.[45]
Spanberger supports banning members of Congress from trading stocks. She has introduced legislation that would require lawmakers, as well as their spouses and dependent children, to place assets in a blind trust while in office.[46]
Environment
Spanberger has called climate change "one of the greatest and most imminent threats to our economy, our national security, and our way of life" and promised to "stand up to attacks against science."[40] During a Committee on Foreign Affairs meeting in 2019, Spanberger asked the Trump administration to reverse its isolationist policies, saying, "it’s in [the US's] national interest to reinforce our stature as a global leader on international environmental and energy issues."[47]
She described the Green New Deal proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a "bold compilation of ideas meant to address global climate change" but criticized it for allegedly including unrelated policy proposals and not identifying specific resolutions to the problems that it identifies. "Overall I am not a supporter of the Green New Deal", she said.[48]
Guns
Spanberger has called for a new version of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004. She favors requiring background checks on private gun sales and supported a ban on bump stocks.[40]
Health care
Spanberger supports the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).[40] She supports a public option for healthcare via the proposed Medicare-X Choice Act.[43] In November 2020, she described reducing the cost of prescription drugs as "the top priority of families in [her] district".[45]
In January 2020, Spanberger sponsored the Public Disclosure of Drug Discounts Act, which passed the House unanimously. The bill requires pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), who manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance companies, to publicize the rebates, discounts, and price concessions they negotiate, via a website hosted by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Spanberger also co-sponsored the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, which grants Medicare Part D the power to negotiate prescription prices directly with drug companies.[49]
Immigration
Spanberger objected to Trump's travel bans from certain predominantly Muslim countries and argued that they would aid jihadist propaganda by allowing a portrayal of the United States as an anti-Muslim country. She has voiced her support for stronger border security measures but opposes Trump's proposed wall.[40] She voted for a bill that included funding for border infrastructure, technology at ports of entry and more customs and border patrol agents. She said she does not support "sanctuary cities" but also called the term "a campaign slogan a lot of people get caught up in." She added that it "degrades the value of the conversation if we're not actually talking about what the real concern is."[48] Spanberger called for a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants who abide by the laws, work, and pay taxes.[40]
Spanberger voted to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be notified when undocumented immigrants attempt to purchase firearms, and voted against the House budget in summer 2019 because it failed to acknowledge the growing national debt.[43]
Donald Trump
According to FiveThirtyEight's congressional vote tracker, Spanberger voted with President Donald Trump 6.9% of the time—about one seventh of the expected tally (49.1%) when factoring in the district's partisan leaning and general partisanship in Congress.[50] In the 2016 presidential election, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton with 50% of the vote to her 44% in Spanberger's congressional district.[51]
On September 23, 2019, Spanberger joined six other freshman House Democrats with national security backgrounds in calling for an impeachment inquiry into Trump. They co-wrote a Washington Post opinion piece explaining their support for an impeachment inquiry, writing: "Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election." They wrote that if the allegations were true, they amounted to "a flagrant disregard for the law" and "a threat to all we have sworn to protect."[52] Spanberger later announced that she would vote in favor of impeachment. "The President's actions violate his oath of office, endanger our national security, and betray the public trust", she said.[53]
On June 1, 2020, Spanberger tweeted criticism of Trump's reaction to the George Floyd protests, a series of protests against police brutality that began in Minneapolis on May 26. On June 2, The Washington Post and The New York Times quoted Spanberger and several other high-profile former CIA analysts' interpretations of Trump's reaction to the protests as reminiscent of the reaction of totalitarian dictators on the brink of losing control of their dictatorships. "As a former CIA officer, I know this playbook, and I know the president's actions are betraying the very foundation of the rule of law he purports to support, the U.S. Constitution", she said.[54][55][56] Spanberger took issue with Trump after police used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protestors and a priest during the George Floyd protests to clear a path so that he could have a photo op in front of St. John's Episcopal Church.[57][54]
Spanberger opposed Democrats' attempts to amend the Insurrection Act of 1807, saying that amending the rarely used law would not accomplish what Democrats intended.[43]
Joe Biden
As of June 2022, Spanberger had voted in line with Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time.[58]
In a November 2021 interview with the New York Times, Spanberger criticized Biden after the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, saying, "Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos."[59] She also said the Democrats had not sufficiently recognized that "inflation is a problem".[60]
Electoral history...
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ref 17
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/democrat-suffers-the-kind-of-smear-john-mccain-would-recognize.html
among the distinctions of John McCain’s political life was being targeted by one of the ugliest smear campaigns in memory.
Now, courtesy of Republican operatives tied to House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Democratic House candidate is giving the late Arizona senator competition even as the nation mourns him. For McCain, it was flyers and phone calls to South Carolina voters suggesting he fathered a dark-skinned child whom he and his wife Cindy actually adopted from Bangladesh after she was orphaned. For Abigail Spanberger, it is a groundless suggestion of ties to terrorism when actually she spent eight years as a CIA counterterrorism agent. The attack on Spanberger, now challenging GOP Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia’s 7th District, involved three extraordinary steps.
The first appeared to start with routine opposition research. A Republican consulting firm asked the government for Spanberger’s personnel records under the Freedom of Information Act.
What came back three weeks later was anything but routine: Spanberger’s highly confidential application for a security clearance to work at the CIA. Such “SF-86” applications are strictly shielded by privacy rules.
The Republican firm says it got the form by mistake from the Postal Service, where Spanberger once worked as a postal inspector. The Postal Service on Thursday apologized for its “human error.”
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That doesn’t explain how a mistake of that magnitude occurred so rapidly. Spanberger requested her own personnel records months ago and hasn’t received them.
The second step was equally remarkable. Instead of returning the document, the research firm gave it to the Ryan-linked super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund.
Seeking political advantage, the fund gave it to an Associated Press reporter in hopes of drawing attention to one tidbit: at age 23, while awaiting her security clearance, Spanberger taught English at an Islamic school in suburban Washington. A graduate from before Spanberger worked there later was convicted of assisting al-Qaeda.
Wary of how Republicans obtained the form, the AP didn’t publish a story. Suggestions of impropriety were self-negating anyway, since the teaching stint occurred during an active federal background check that approved Spanberger for top-secret work.
That made the third step so audacious. Once a New York Times story publicized the form’s improper release, the Ryan-linked PAC embraced the innuendo rather than renouncing it.
“It should surprise no one that Ms. Spanberger would want to hide from voters that she worked at a school that produced some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists,” the fund declared.
The PAC offers no evidence Spanberger did anything wrong. Unless it can, the attack is a stone-cold smear.
Outraged Democrats, fearing other candidates remain at risk, have demanded a federal investigation. Without elaboration, the Postal Service says “a small number of additional requests for information from personnel files were improperly processed.”
Ryan distanced himself from the episode, with a spokesman insisting “we cannot speak to the activity or behavior of outside groups.” So did House GOP campaign chief Steve Stivers, whose spokesman said it “has nothing to do with us.”
Brat, an economics professor who might be expected to campaign on tax cuts and growth, hasn’t commented.
But prominent Republicans outside the party’s fight to hold its House majority share the Democrats’ outrage. "The people who made the information public should be prosecuted,” said Kori Schake, a former National Security Council aide to President George W. Bush. “What the PAC did was a gross violation of her privacy.”
Schake’s ex-colleague Fran Townsend likened innuendo about Spanberger to someone linking Bush to terrorism because he had spoken at a Washington mosque after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“People fill out an SF-86 because they’re trying to serve their country,” said Townsend, Bush’s White House Homeland Security advisor when Spanberger started at the CIA. “If the U.S. government had a problem at the time, they would have denied her a security clearance.”
Longtime Republican strategist Dan Schnur called it a multistage “atrocity”– beginning with improper release of the SF-86 and ending with the fund’s exploitation of it.
“I’m not sure which aspect of the story is the most horrific,” he said. But as a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, he’s wearily familiar with the impulses of his embattled Trump-era successors in the national GOP.
“It’s very easy in the heat of a campaign to decide that the ends justify the means,” Schnur explained. “My favorite quote over the years has become Twain’s, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.’”
Schnur was McCain’s communications director when Bush’s South Carolina allies circulated rumors about the parentage of the McCains’ adopted Bangladeshi daughter, Bridget. Bush’s GOP primary win there blunted McCain’s 2000 presidential bid.
Bitterness over that episode faded with time. Before he died, McCain asked Bush to speak at his Washington funeral service. Bridget McCain spoke Thursday at a service in Arizona.
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1123an no lnx
'Completely unacceptable': Johnson gavels House out for 3-day weekend to attend far-right event in Paris
Carl Gibson
November 10, 2023
Even though a potential federal government shutdown is just eight days away, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) sent lawmakers home early for a long weekend to tend to a different priority: Catching a flight to Paris.
The New Republic reported Friday that Johnson — who still has yet to present a plan to fund the government before the November 18 deadline — gaveled the House of Representatives out of session on Thursday so he can make it to the Worldwide Freedom Initiative's (WFI) upcoming conference in Paris, France, where he's due to speak Friday night.
"We are just 8 days away from a devastating government shutdown — and instead of working in a bipartisan way to keep the government open, Speaker Johnson sent Congress home early for the weekend," tweeted Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia). "This is completely unacceptable."
According to the New Republic, this weekend's WFI conference features an array of prominent far-right figures. In addition to Johnson, Governor Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota) will also be in attendance, along with her paramour Corey Lewandowski, who was found to have had a years-long affair with Noem earlier this year despite Noem still being legally married to her husband. A spokeswoman for far-right public education activist group Moms for Liberty — an anti-LGBTQ group whose school board candidates suffered multiple staggering losses in five different states Tuesday night — is also speaking. A promotional flyer for the event also teases appearances by Truth Social CEO (and former California Congressman) Devin Nunes, as well as former Trump campaign manager David Bossie.
Johnson will also be joined at the conference by various international far-right activists, including Brexit architect Nigel Farage, French politician Eric Zemmour — who has defended the Nazi Party's French collaborators — and Balázs Orbán, who serves as political director to extremist Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán (no relation).
This weekend isn't Johnson's first introduction to the WFI, with TNR reporting that the newly minted House speaker delivered the keynote speech at the group's launch event earlier on the 4th of July prior to his colleagues giving him the speaker's gavel. Johnson has also been making his rounds with right-wing media since becoming speaker, giving multiple interviews to Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network.
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republican-pac-publishes-security-application-former-cia-agent-running-democrat
Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic candidate in Virginia’s 7th district, and a former officer in the CIA. The Congressional Leadership Fund is a Republican Super PAC associated with Paul Ryan, which plans to hand out over $100 million to GOP candidates for the election this fall. But money isn’t the only thing that the PAC is handing out. They’ve also produced the application Spanberger submitted in seeking security clearance with the CIA, making her personal information public. How the PAC obtained this form is an open, and important, question.
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According tothe New York Times, theRepublican Congressional Leadership Fundhas both published the form, with some personal information redacted, and made it available to reporters. Security applications, by their nature, provide highly detailed background information. They may require that the person involved produce information on actions that could potentially be embarrassing, even if not illegal.
As an example, since obtaining Spanberger’s form, a polling company connected with the Republican PAC has conductedpush pollsasking voters if they would be less likely to support the Democratic candidate “if she knew that the candidate had taught at a school funded by the Saudi royal family that had ‘numerous students arrested for terrorism.’” The Republican PAC has also put out a “news release” on this topic.
Spanberger is currently running strongly against Republican Representative Dave Brat in what the GOP had regarded as a “safe” district. With a broad range of endorsements and support, this represents another district that Republicans are finding a challenge in 2018 after a series of walk-over elections. So it’s understandable that Republicans are desperate to find an edge.
The problems is: Where did they find it? The Congressional Leadership Fund claims that the form was obtained through a FOIA request to the Post Office,where Spanberger worked briefly while waiting for clearance from the CIA. But the version of the document, and the fact that the copy given to reporters seems to be unredacted, does not square with the version that should be produced through a FOIA request. In fact, the unredacted form cannot be released under the Privacy Act.
The Democratic candidate has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, demanding that the PAC destroy all copies of the form and “agree to not use the information in any fashion.” And the real question boils down to: Is someone within the Trump White House handing out classified information to be used against Democratic candidates?
The Richmond Times-Dispatch shows how Republicans are attempting to use even the controversy about how they obtained this document to harm Spanberger. A spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund replied to questions that “It should surprise no one that Ms. Spanberger would want to hide from voters that she worked at a school that produced some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.”
Spanberger was a substitute teacher at a prep school for wealthy students, filling in for a teacher on maternity leave, between the time she finished her Masters degree and before she took her Post Office job. No student she taught has been connected to terrorism in any way. She also waited tables. Republicans have not yet produced a news release claiming that she served a plate of eggs to Osama bin Laden … but there’s still time.
Daily Kos Elections rated the VA-7 race as “Leans Republican” on Aug 22. The Cook Report has moved the race to “Toss up.”
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Conservative PAC releases document on Spanberger teaching at Saudi-funded school
Patrick Wilson Aug 28, 2018
A conservative super PAC provided news media with a document Tuesday showing that Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee in the 7th U.S. Congressional District, years ago taught at a Saudi-funded school in Northern Virginia that later had to defend itself after a former valedictorian was charged with joining al-Qaida.
Spanberger, a former CIA officer, successfully completed the agency’s background check after she had taught at the school in late 2002 and 2003.
The Spanberger campaign said it believes the Congressional Leadership Fund PAC obtained an unredacted national security questionnaire illegally. A consultant for the PAC, which is linked to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the records were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“I am not aware of any legal way that CLF could have this document,” Spanberger, a former CIA officer challenging Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, wrote in a letter to the PAC on Tuesday. She demanded that the PAC destroy the unredacted records and agree not to share them.
The PAC issued a news release attacking Spanberger for working at a school, the Islamic Saudi Academy, that later fended off controversy. The news release noted that in 2005, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a release calling for a probe of the school.
“It should surprise no one that Ms. Spanberger would want to hide from voters that she worked at a school that produced some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists,” CLF spokeswoman Courtney Alexander said in the PAC’s news release Tuesday.
Spanberger said she was a substitute teacher at the prep school between the time that she earned a master’s in business administration and took her job as a federal postal inspector. She said she filled in for a teacher who was out on maternity leave, and noted that she also worked at a restaurant while waiting for a federal job.
“It is just disappointing that a political party is so desperate to win a seat that they will try to create controversy when there is none,” she said.
The Congressional Leadership Fund sent reporters a letter dated July 9 from America Rising Corporation, a Republican research firm, to the National Personnel Records Center making a FOIA request for Spanberger’s official civilian personnel file.
According to CLF, the National Personnel Records Center forwarded the request to the U.S. Postal Service, which responded by providing the personnel file on July 30.
Alexander, the PAC spokeswoman, and Brian Walsh, a consultant working with Congressional Leadership Fund,did not immediately provide further records when asked for any further documentation related to the FOIA request, but Walsh made note of a postal service tracking number.
The 7th District race is a key contest in a national effort by Democrats to try to flip the House to Democratic control.
Brat is seeking a third term and is facing an energetic challenge from the Spanberger team, which dispatched a well-funded Democratic primary rival in June. Spanberger’s campaign hopes a strong showing in the increasingly Democratic suburbs of Henrico and Chesterfield counties — fueled further by the unpopularity of President Donald Trump in Virginia — will help lead to a win in a district Republicans have held since 1971.
ref
A conservative super PAC provided news media with a document Tuesday showing that Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee in the 7th U.S. Congressional District, years ago taught at a Saudi-funded school in Northern Virginia that later had to defend itself after a former valedictorian was charged with joining al-Qaida.
Dave Brat Abigail Spanberger Saudi Arabia Attack Islamic Saudi Academy Spanberger Politics Institutes Pac
PatrickWilson
Patrick Wilson
pwilson@timesdispatch.com; (804) 649-6061; Twitter: @patrickmwilson
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/dave-brat-admits-he-supports-corey-stewart
Ever since Confederate sympathizer Corey Stewart was nominated by Republicans to challenge Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), many high-profile Republicans in the state have found themselves in an uncomfortable position.
GOP Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) has spent weeks trying not to answer where he stands. In July, asked by an interviewer whether he supports Stewart, he gave a 5 minute explanation of how he follows "the systematic theology of Martin Luther King" and Democrats want "a huge state moving towards socialism," without actually answering the question. And earlier this week, he told another person asking him about Stewart, "I gotta get my car fixed" and hurried away.
But at a private event in Chesterfield, Brat finally gave a straight answer, according to audio posted by Richmond2Day.
"Yeah, I am clear on all of this, on the president, on Corey Stewart, on anyone, it is just the Republican creed," Brat told an attendee. "The press up there, they always want to get you on the tweet of the morning, right? So they say, what do you think of this, what do you think of this? I don't respond to that. I respond to the policies I run on."
Stewart, who defeated state Del. Nick Freitas and minister E. W. Jackson Sr. for the Republican Senate nomination in June, is a Prince William County supervisor and former state-level Trump campaign manager who was fired for staging an unauthorized demonstration at the Republican National Committee headquarters, decrying "establishment pukes" who criticized then-candidate Donald Trump over the "Access Hollywood" tape.
Stewart fiercely defends Confederate monuments to slavery and white supremacy, comparing people who advocate their removal to ISIS. He has also appeared in public with Jason Kessler, the neo-Nazi behind the deadly "Unite the Right" Charlottesville riots last year, and called prominent anti-Semitic white supremacist Paul Nehlen a "personal hero" — which he later falsely tried to claim he only did before Nehlen started sharing racist content.
Brat's assertion he doesn't have to have an opinion on Stewart's racist beliefs as long as he is a vote for the GOP agenda is ridiculous and insulting — and it is revealing that he waited until he was in friendly company to say it.
But this attitude of promoting the "Republican creed" over basic character and decency is not new from Brat. He has also previously stated he stands with his fellow Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), calling him "one of the most ethical guys," despite a series of allegations that he ignored sexual abuse as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University.
Brat, who represents Virginia's 6th Congressional District in the central portion of the state, is locked in a competitive race with Democratic former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger. The race is becoming increasingly nasty, with one super PAC affiliated with House Speaker Paul Ryan allegedly obtaining Spanberger's security clearance forms for improper political use.
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