Matthew Dowd, a Republican strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, on Tuesday predicted when former President Donald Trump will be convicted.
Dowd, talking to MSNBC’s Joy Reid, said he envisioned Trump ― who faces 91 charges across four criminal cases ― winning the GOP primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina “and he’ll basically all but be the nominee.”
That is when, Dowd suggested, Republican 2024 front-runner Trump will be convicted — just before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July 2024.
“So he’ll be the nominee, but be a convicted nominee in the midst of this, and then we’ll be headed to a general election with the nominee of a major political party convicted, at least in one court, if not in two different courts, in this time,” Dowd explained.
“A convicted felon running for president under the Republican Party,” added Dowd. “We have never in my life have ever seen a calendar that will unfold in that manner. But it also is going to be so weird while this is going on, Republican voters voting for him to be the nominee of the party as he’s convicted.”
Feinstein, a Democrat, was the oldest member of the Senate, where she had served since 1992. She held her seat in the chamber longer than any other woman and any other senator from California.
She passed away Thursday night at her home in Washington, D.C.
“There are few women who can be called senator, chairman, mayor, wife, mom and grandmother. Senator Feinstein was a force of nature who made an incredible impact on our country and her home state,” her chief of staff, James Sauls, said in a statement.
Feinstein’s death ends a boundary-pushing political career that spanned more than half a century and was studded with major legislative achievements on issues including gun control and the environment.
But in Feinstein’s final years, she had increasingly visible health and memory issues, and as a result of those a conflict with fellow Democrats over her refusal to step down.
She planned to retire at the end of her current term in January 2025.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in the Senate subway on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 11, 2022.
Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
Feinstein’s death leaves it to Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a temporary successor. Three leading Democrats are seeking the seat, Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff.
Newsom in a statement called Feinstein “a political giant, whose tenacity was matched by her grace.”
“She broke down barriers and glass ceilings, but never lost her belief in the spirit of political cooperation,” he said. “There is simply nobody who possessed the poise, gravitas, and fierceness of Dianne Feinstein.”
Newsom said he and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, “are deeply saddened by her passing, and we will mourn with her family in this difficult time.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the chamber floor, “We lost a giant in the Senate.”
“Today, there are 25 women serving in this chamber, and every one of them will admit they stand on Dianne’s shoulders,” he said.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker of the House, grew emotional as she told reporters, “It’s a very sad day for all of us.”
“May she rest in peace,” Pelosi said.
President Joe Biden, who served with Feinstein for decades in the Senate, said in a statement, “She had an immense impact on younger female leaders for whom she generously opened doors.”
“Dianne was tough, sharp, always prepared, and never pulled a punch, but she was also a kind and loyal friend, and that’s what Jill and I will miss the most,” Biden said.
A San Francisco native, Feinstein cleared a path for women in politics as she rose through the ranks of leadership.
Close-up of American politician San Francisco Board of Supervisors member (and future US Senator) Dianne Feinstein as she attends a Candidates’ Day event at the Douglas School, San Francisco, California, September 1979.
Janet Fries | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
After two failed bids for mayor, she was elected president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1978, becoming the first woman to hold the title.
Feinstein was made acting mayor later that year, when then-Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, a colleague on the supervisors board, were assassinated by former board member Dan White.
In later interviews, Feinstein recalled finding Milk’s body and searching for a pulse by putting her finger in a bullet hole.
Feinstein was the first to announce the murders to the press. Her appointment a week later made her San Francisco’s first female mayor.
The trauma of the murders remained with her for decades.
“I never really talk about this,” Feinstein said with a sigh when asked about the killings during a 2017 CNN interview.
Candidate Dianne Feinstein celebrates her primary win, June 2, 1992.
John O’Hara | San Francisco Chronicle | Getty Images
Her streak of firsts continued at the national level.
Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid in 1990. But in 1992, she won a special election to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first California woman to hold a seat there.
Weeks later, Barbara Boxer was sworn in as a senator, making California the first state to be represented in the Senate by two women at once.
Their elections came in the “Year of the Woman,” when four Democratic women were elected to the Senate — more than doubling the chamber’s female representation.
Feinstein clinched some of her biggest legislative achievements in the Senate. She wrote and championed the 1994 assault weapons ban, a landmark bill that was a continuation of a career-long effort to enact stricter gun controls.
The legislation passed Congress and was signed by then-President Bill Clinton, albeit with major compromises including a 10-year sunset provision. The ban expired in 2004 during the administration of George W. Bush.
She also sponsored bills that protect millions of acres of California’s desert, worked to create a nationwide AMBER alert network, helped reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and fought for the release of a lengthy report detailing the CIA’s torture practices, among other accomplishments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on judicial nominations on Capitol Hill September 6, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Over her three decades in the Senate, Feinstein has generally been seen as a political moderate in her party. In the 1990s and 2000s, that reputation made Feinstein highly popular — but much of that popularity eroded in the following years as California’s political tint shifted toward deeper shades of blue.
As her centrism grew increasingly out of fashion, Feinstein’s standing in her final stretch in office was further diminished by a crescendo of skepticism about her mental fitness for the Senate.
A damning report from the San Francisco Chronicle in April 2022 featured unnamed Democratic colleagues of Feinstein fretting over her apparent decline in mental acuity. Feinstein defended her ability to govern, while acknowledging that she had been going through an “extremely painful and distracting” period as her late husband, financier Richard Blum, had battled cancer.
By the time Feinstein announced that she would not seek reelection at the end of her term in 2024, multiple Democratic politicians had already launched campaigns to succeed her.
A bust of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is displayed inside San Francisco City Hall on September 29, 2023 in San Francisco, California.
KYIV — Former U.S. President George W. Bush reckons Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is so tough, he could be from Texas.
Speaking via video chat during a conference in Kyiv on Friday, Bush said he sees Russia’s President Vladimir Putin as an empire builder, who may not stop at invading Ukraine. As for Zelenskyy, Bush joked: “Well he is a tough dude, he is a real Texan.”
Although Bush was born in Connecticut, he was raised in Texas.
Bush also said it would be harder and harder to persuade Americans that helping Ukraine is in their best interest. “First and foremost, Ukraine needs to tackle corruption. [A] recent reshuffle in the government showed me that Zelenskyy wants to do it,” Bush said.
According to Bush, if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, the U.S. will have to be involved in helping the likes of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia next.
“The condition in Ukraine matters to the security of the U.S. The U.S. still has to support people like Zelenskyy when they show courage,” Bush said.
Lionel Barber is former editor of the Financial Times (2005-20) and Brussels bureau chief (1992-98)
Nobody does “No” better than the French. Charles De Gaulle said “Non” twice to Britain’s bid to join the European Economic Community; Jacques Chirac said “Non” to the Iraq war; and Emmanuel Macron this week gave a thumbs down to Fiona Scott Morton, the American Yale academic selected for the post of top economist at the EU’s powerful competition directorate in Brussels.
L’affaire Scott Morton may seem trivial in comparison to the (still unresolved) debate over Britain’s place in Europe or armed conflict in the Middle East, but the French veto of the first foreigner to take up the post says an awful lot about the European Union’s current paranoia about America’s influence and power.
As Macron has pushed a vision of Europe that stands up to the U.S., resisting pressure to become “America’s followers,” as he put it in April, such thinking has strengthened in Brussels.
The Scott Morton fiasco brings back memories of a lunch in Brussels exactly 30 years ago when some officials suspected the U.S. was engaged in an Anglo-Saxon plot to sabotage their plans for economic and monetary union. “Remember James Jesus Angleton,” said a stone-faced Belgian bureaucrat, invoking the name of the legendary, obsessive CIA counterintelligence officer at the height of the Cold War.
Professor Scott Morton was selected as the best candidate in open competition. She enjoyed the backing of Margrethe Vestager, the Danish EU competition commissioner often described as the most powerful antitrust regulator in the world. She also had support from Ursula von der Leyen, German president of the European Commission, whose leadership during the Ukraine war and the COVID pandemic has won widespread praise on both sides of the Atlantic.
All this counted for naught. Despite her distinguished academic pedigree, Scott Morton, a former Obama administration antitrust official, worked for Apple, Amazon and Microsoft in competition cases in the U.S. The notion her background somehow disqualified her for the job shows George W. Bush was wrong when he complained the French had no word for “entrepreneur.” Today’s problem is that Paris has no understanding of the term “poacher turned gamekeeper.”
As Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister, tweeted: “Regrettable that narrow-minded opposition in some EU countries has led to this. She was reportedly the most competent candidate, and a knowledge of the U.S. and its antitrust policies should certainly not have been a disadvantage.”
Now, President Macron’s opposition to the appointment has attracted a good deal of support in the Commission, in the European Parliament and among European trade unions. Cristiano Sebastiani, head of Renouveau & Démocratie, a trade union representing EU employees, said senior EU officials should “be invested, believe and contribute towards the European project. The very logic of our statute is that an EU official can never go back to being an ordinary citizen.”
France’s veto of Professor Scott Morton is de facto a veto of Vestager, who was almost untouchable during her first term as competition commissioner between 2014-19. She won kudos for investigating, fining and bringing lawsuits against major multinationals including Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Qualcomm, and Gazprom. More controversially, at least in Paris and Berlin, she vetoed the planned merger between Alstom and Siemens, two industrial giants intent on creating a European champion.
Vestager’s second term has been a different story. She has suffered reverses in the courts which overturned punitive fines against Apple and Qualcomm. Then, although she ranks as a vice-president of the Commission, Vestager found herself challenged by a nominal underling in the shape of Thierry Breton, a former top French industrialist put in charge of the EU’s internal market.
Both have battled over the policing of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and over policy on artificial intelligence, a proxy fight for influence overall in Brussels.
Vestager and Breton have battled over the policing of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and over policy on artificial intelligence | Olivier Hoslet/EPA/AFP via Getty Images
Breton favors the so-called AI Pact, an effort to bring forward parts of the EU’s draft Artificial Intelligence Act. This would ban some AI cases, curb “high-risk” applications, and impose checks on how Google, Microsoft and others develop the emerging technology.
By contrast, Vestager favors a voluntary code of conduct focused on generative AI such as ChatGPT. This could be developed at a global level, in partnership with the U.S., rather than waiting for the two years it will take to secure legislative passage of Breton’s AI Pact.
So what’s the solution? If Europe is to have any chance of prevailing, so the argument goes, member states must take a far harder-nosed attitude to competition policy. This leads in turn to the creation of national or pan-European champions at the expense of crackdowns on subsidies and other anti-competitive behavior. In short, the very liberal policies designed to protect the single market’s level playing field and embodied by the fighting Viking.
For those who occasionally wonder how power has shifted inside the EU since Brexit took the U.K. out of the equation, it is proof indeed that “liberal Europe” is on a losing streak.
DALLAS — Britain might have fallen out of love with Boris Johnson. But Ukraine’s allies in the U.S. reckon the charismatic ex-prime minister is still the perfect messenger to shore up support for the war in wavering Republican heartlands.
Pro-Ukraine think tankers on Monday brought Johnson to a private lunch in Dallas, Texas, to meet two dozen of the state’s leading conservative figures, including politicians, donors and captains of industry.
The message Johnson was there to deliver was simple: America must stay the course in Ukraine.
“I just urge you all to stick with it,” Johnson told those seated in the grand, wood-panelled dining room in downtown Dallas, where POLITICO was also in attendance. “It will pay off massively in the long run.”
The former U.K. prime minister flew to Texas as a growing number of conservative lawmakers, candidates and activists have started to question the size of the U.S. support package for Ukraine as it attempts to fight back against the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.
Political tensions over the war are expected to rise further as the 2024 U.S. election draws nearer.
The two most high-profile potential candidates for the Republican nomination — former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — have both voiced skepticism about America’s unwavering support for Ukraine. Trump has pledged to cut a “deal” to “end that war in one day,” while DeSantis dismissed it as a “territorial dispute” which does not involve America’s “vital national interests — though later partially backtracked.
But Johnson told Texan Republicans on Monday: “You are backing the right horse. Ukraine is going to win. They are going to defeat Putin.”
The lunch was not the first time Johnson has lobbied U.S. lawmakers on Ukraine’s behalf. He visited Washington in January, where he publicly urged the U.S. administration to give Ukraine fighter jets, and privately met Republican lawmakers on the same trip.
Following that visit, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) — a bipartisan, Ukraine-supporting think tank based in Washington — decided to enlist Johnson’s support for a broader mission.
The group wanted him to take his energetic, pro-conservative case for the war out of metropolitan D.C. and deep into Republican territory.
“We wanted to make that case outside of Washington — where we all live in a bubble — and to really take it to the heartland, to places like Texas, to get more support for Ukraine, and make the case to people who are skeptical about that support,” said Alina Polyakova, CEPA’s chief executive.
“In many ways Dallas and Texas are the center of the Republican debate,” she added.
Texas will be a key battleground in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Trump held his first presidential rally in the Lone Star State in March, while DeSantis and former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley have also been courting votes in Texas.
Johnson is “very much seen as the architect of the Western policy” on Ukraine, Polyakova said, adding that “because Trump had nice things to say about him when he was the president,” it also gives Johnson “a lot of credibility as well with the base of the Republican Party.”
As well as the private lunch with Republicans in Dallas on Monday, Johnson also met with former U.S. President George W. Bush, who lives in the city with his wife Laura. Johnson is due to meet Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Austin on Tuesday.
Unusually, the former U.K. prime minister, who raked in almost £5 million from speaking fees in the first six months after leaving office, was not paid for Monday’s lunchtime speaking engagement. However, he did arrange the Dallas trip as a stopover en route to the SCALE Global Summit in Las Vegas, a fintech conference where he will be paid an expected six-figure sum for a scheduled speech.
Man on a mission
Johnson has kept Ukraine at the top of his public agenda since being forced to resign as PM last July over a string of personal scandals, including his attendance at COVID-19 lockdown-busting parties at his Downing Street home and office.
In power, Johnson had forged a strong personal bond with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and played a leading role in early Western efforts to arm Ukraine. His allies even mooted the idea of him becoming a formal envoy to Ukraine following his abrupt Downing Street exit, though the idea never came to fruition.
That hasn’t stopped Johnson continuing his personal lobbying push, however. He visited the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in January 2023 — despite no longer being a frontline politician — and has continued to speak in support on multiple occasions.
At the Dallas lunch on Monday, Johnson insisted Western backing for Ukraine need not be indefinite, telling those present he had “every hope that the Ukrainians will be able to deliver a very substantial counterpunch this summer,” and that he believed there was “a prospect of a complete Russian military collapse.”
And addressing concerns in Republican quarters that the U.S. should be focusing its attention on China rather than on a land war in Eastern Europe, Johnson said victory for Putin would be “terrible in its ramifications for south-east Asia, for the South China Sea, for all the areas of potential conflict between the great powers in the decades to come.”
By contrast, he added, Western solidarity on Ukraine had already sent a clear message to China.
“From Beijing’s point of view, they’re looking at this and they’re thinking this has massively increased the strategic ambiguity and the risk surrounding a venture against Taiwan,” Johnson said.
One businessman present pressed Johnson on corruption in Ukraine, which he said he had heard was “really bad again.”
But the former prime minister insisted the $50 billion spending package agreed by President Biden would prove “value for money.” The U.S. is getting a “huge, huge boost for global security for a relatively small outlay,” he said.
And Johnson being Johnson, he couldn’t resist a swipe at his old rival Emmanuel Macron, whom he has reportedly referred to in private as “Putin’s lickspittle.”
“I think it was my French friend and colleague Emmanuel Macron who said ‘Putin must not be humiliated,’” Johnson told the lunch party, adopting a faux French accent to gently mock the president.
“I think it takes an awful lot to humiliate Vladimir Putin, frankly,” Johnson went on. “I don’t think it’s our job to worry about Vladimir Putin’s ego, or his political prospects, or developments in his career.”
Whether Johnson retains the populist credentials to win over the most ardent Trump supporters Stateside remains to be seen, however.
In an interview with Nigel Farage on GB News last month, Trump said that while Johnson was a “wonderful guy” and “a friend of mine,” he had been disappointed by his time in office.
Johnson had gone “a bit on the liberal side,” Trump noted sadly. “Probably in a negative way.”
Monday marked 20 years since the U.S.-led ground invasion of Iraq began. CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata joined John Dickerson on “Prime Time” to discuss what has changed in the country in the two decades since the war started.
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Today is Sunday, Jan. 1, the first day of 2023. There are 364 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states shall be “forever free.”
On this date:
In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.
In 1942, the Rose Bowl was played in Durham, North Carolina, because of security concerns in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor; Oregon State defeated Duke, 20-16.
In 1953, country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, was discovered dead in the back seat of his car during a stop in Oak Hill, West Virginia, while he was being driven to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.
In 1954, NBC broadcast the first coast-to-coast color TV program as it presented live coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.
In 1959, Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.
In 1975, a jury in Washington found Nixon administration officials John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Robert C. Mardian guilty of charges related to the Watergate cover-up (Mardian’s conviction for conspiracy was later overturned on appeal).
In 1979, the United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In 1984, the breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
In 1985, the music cable channel VH-1 made its debut with a video of Marvin Gaye performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In 2006, President George W. Bush strongly defended his domestic spying program, calling it legal as well as vital to thwarting terrorist attacks. The Medicare prescription drug plan went into effect.
In 2014, the nation’s first legal recreational pot shops opened in Colorado at 8 a.m. Mountain time.
Ten years ago: The Senate approved a compromise in the small hours to avert the “fiscal cliff” and sent it to the House, which approved it in a late-night vote; President Barack Obama announced he would sign the measure. In Maryland, same-sex marriage became legal in the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line. No. 8 Stanford held off Wisconsin 20-14 in the 99th Rose Bowl. Singer Patti Page, 85, died in Encinitas, California.
Five years ago: Former Fox News Channel anchor and 1989 Miss America Gretchen Carlson was named chairwoman of the Miss America Organization’s board of directors, with three other past pageant winners joining her on the board. In the first Rose Bowl to go into overtime, Georgia advanced to college football’s national championship game with a 54-48 win over Oklahoma. Alabama advanced by beating top-ranked Clemson, 24-6, in the Sugar Bowl. Peter Martins, the longtime leader of the New York City Ballet, announced his retirement in the midst of an investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct. California launched legal sales of recreational marijuana, with customers linking up early for ribbon cuttings and promotions.
One year ago: A Louisiana federal judge ruled that President Joe Biden could not require teachers in the Head Start early education program to be vaccinated against COVID-19. A year after New Year’s Day passed without a Rose Parade due to the coronavirus pandemic, the floral spectacle marched on in Pasadena, California, despite a new surge of infections. Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was remembered at a state funeral in South Africa for his Nobel Peace Prize-earning role in ending the country’s apartheid regime and for championing the rights of LGBTQ people. Chicago police said 2021 had ended as one of the deadliest years on record in the city, with 797 homicides. Former Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Reeves died at his Atlanta home at the age of 77.
Today’s Birthdays: Documentary maker Frederick Wiseman is 93. Actor Frank Langella is 85. Rock singer-musician Country Joe McDonald is 81. Writer-comedian Don Novello is 80. Actor Rick Hurst is 77. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is 69. The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, is 67. Rapper Grandmaster Flash is 65. Actor Renn Woods is 65. Actor Dedee Pfeiffer is 59. Country singer Brian Flynn (Flynnville Train) is 57. Actor Morris Chestnut is 54. R&B singer Tank is 47. Model Elin Nordegren is 43. Actor Jonas Armstrong is 42. Actor Eden Riegel is 42. Olympic gold medal ice dancer Meryl Davis is 36. Rock musician Noah Sierota (Echosmith) is 27.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxToday in History
Today is Sunday, Jan. 1, the first day of 2023. There are 364 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states shall be “forever free.”
On this date:
In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.
In 1942, the Rose Bowl was played in Durham, North Carolina, because of security concerns in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor; Oregon State defeated Duke, 20-16.
In 1953, country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, was discovered dead in the back seat of his car during a stop in Oak Hill, West Virginia, while he was being driven to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.
In 1954, NBC broadcast the first coast-to-coast color TV program as it presented live coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.
In 1959, Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.
In 1975, a jury in Washington found Nixon administration officials John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Robert C. Mardian guilty of charges related to the Watergate cover-up (Mardian’s conviction for conspiracy was later overturned on appeal).
In 1979, the United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In 1984, the breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
In 1985, the music cable channel VH-1 made its debut with a video of Marvin Gaye performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In 2006, President George W. Bush strongly defended his domestic spying program, calling it legal as well as vital to thwarting terrorist attacks. The Medicare prescription drug plan went into effect.
In 2014, the nation’s first legal recreational pot shops opened in Colorado at 8 a.m. Mountain time.
Ten years ago: The Senate approved a compromise in the small hours to avert the “fiscal cliff” and sent it to the House, which approved it in a late-night vote; President Barack Obama announced he would sign the measure. In Maryland, same-sex marriage became legal in the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line. No. 8 Stanford held off Wisconsin 20-14 in the 99th Rose Bowl. Singer Patti Page, 85, died in Encinitas, California.
Five years ago: The nation’s first legal recreational pot shops opened in Colorado at 8 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. Actress Juanita Moore, 99, died in Los Angeles. No. 4 Michigan State romped to a 24-20 victory over No. 5 Stanford in the 100th Rose Bowl. No. 15 Central Florida pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the bowl season by outlasting No. 6 Baylor 52-42 in the Fiesta Bowl.
One year ago: A Louisiana federal judge ruled that President Joe Biden could not require teachers in the Head Start early education program to be vaccinated against COVID-19. A year after New Year’s Day passed without a Rose Parade due to the coronavirus pandemic, the floral spectacle marched on in Pasadena, California, despite a new surge of infections. Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was remembered at a state funeral in South Africa for his Nobel Peace Prize-earning role in ending the country’s apartheid regime and for championing the rights of LGBTQ people. Chicago police said 2021 had ended as one of the deadliest years on record in the city, with 797 homicides. Former Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Reeves died at his Atlanta home at the age of 77.
Today’s Birthdays: Documentary maker Frederick Wiseman is 93. Actor Frank Langella is 85. Rock singer-musician Country Joe McDonald is 81. Writer-comedian Don Novello is 80. Actor Rick Hurst is 77. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is 69. The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, is 67. Rapper Grandmaster Flash is 65. Actor Renn Woods is 65. Actor Dedee Pfeiffer is 59. Country singer Brian Flynn (Flynnville Train) is 57. Actor Morris Chestnut is 54. R&B singer Tank is 47. Model Elin Nordegren is 43. Actor Jonas Armstrong is 42. Actor Eden Riegel is 42. Olympic gold medal ice dancer Meryl Davis is 36. Rock musician Noah Sierota (Echosmith) is 27.
Today is Thursday, Dec. 29, the 363rd day of 2022. There are two days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 29, 1845, Texas was admitted as the 28th state.
On this date:
In 1170, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was slain in Canterbury Cathedral by knights loyal to King Henry II.
In 1812, during the War of 1812, the American frigate USS Constitution engaged and severely damaged the British frigate HMS Java off Brazil.
In 1851, the first Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in the United States was founded in Boston.
In 1890, the Wounded Knee massacre took place in South Dakota as an estimated 300 Sioux Indians were killed by U.S. troops sent to disarm them.
In 1940, during World War II, Germany dropped incendiary bombs on London, setting off what came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London.”
In 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, crashed into the Florida Everglades near Miami International Airport, killing 101 of the 176 people aboard.
In 1978, during the Gator Bowl, Ohio State University coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson player Charlie Bauman, who’d intercepted an Ohio State pass. (Hayes was fired by Ohio State the next day.)
In 1989, dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel (VAHTS’-lahv HAH’-vel) assumed the presidency of Czechoslovakia.
In 1992, the United States and Russia announced agreement on a nuclear arms reduction treaty.
In 2006, word reached the United States of the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (because of the time difference, it was the morning of Dec. 30 in Iraq when the hanging took place). In a statement, President George W. Bush called Saddam’s execution an important milestone on Iraq’s road to democracy.
In 2007, the New England Patriots ended their regular season with a remarkable 16-0 record following a 38-35 comeback victory over the New York Giants. (New England became the first NFL team since the 1972 Dolphins to win every game on the schedule.)
In 2016, the United States struck back at Russia for hacking the U.S. presidential campaign with a sweeping set of punishments targeting Russia’s spy agencies and diplomats.
Ten years ago: Maine’s same-sex marriage law went into effect. Shocked Indians mourned the death of a woman who’d been gang-raped and beaten on a bus in New Delhi nearly two weeks earlier; six suspects were charged with murder. (Four were later sentenced to death; one died in prison; the sixth, a juvenile at the time of the attack, was sentenced to a maximum of three years in a reform home.)
Five years ago: Puerto Rico authorities said nearly half of the power customers in the U.S. territory still lacked electricity, more than three months after Hurricane Maria.
One year ago: British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in New York of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by the late Jeffrey Epstein; the verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14. (Maxwell would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.) More than a year after a vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. were soaring to their highest levels on record at over 265,000 per day; the surge was driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant. Candace Parker, who helped the Chicago Sky win the franchise’s first WNBA championship, was named The Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year for a second time.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Inga Swenson is 90. Retired ABC newscaster Tom Jarriel is 88. Actor Barbara Steele is 85. Actor Jon Voight is 84. Singer Marianne Faithfull is 76. Retired Hall of Fame Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. is 76. Actor Ted Danson is 75. Singer-actor Yvonne Elliman is 71. The president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, is 69. Actor Patricia Clarkson is 63. Comedian Paula Poundstone is 63. Rock singer-musician Jim Reid (The Jesus and Mary Chain) is 61. Actor Michael Cudlitz is 58. Rock singer Dexter Holland (The Offspring) is 57. Actor-comedian Mystro Clark is 56. Actor Jason Gould is 56. News anchor Ashleigh Banfield is 55. Movie director Lilly Wachowski is 55. Actor Jennifer Ehle is 53. Actor Patrick Fischler is 53. Rock singer-musician Glen Phillips is 52. Actor Kevin Weisman is 52. Actor Jude Law is 50. Actor Maria Dizzia is 48. Actor Mekhi Phifer (mih-KY’ FY’-fuhr) is 48. Actor Shawn Hatosy is 47. Actor Katherine Moennig is 45. Actor Diego Luna is 43. Actor Alison Brie is 40. Country singer Jessica Andrews is 39. Actor Iain de Caestecker is 35. Actor Jane Levy is 33. Singer-actor-dancer Ross Lynch is 27. Rock musician Danny Wagner is 24.
DUBLIN — U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday appointed the late Robert Kennedy’s grandson Joe to be the next U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland, setting the stage for an increased American focus on the divided U.K. region in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of its troubled Good Friday peace agreement.
After the news of his appointment — first reported by POLITICO — Joe Kennedy III pledged to “reaffirm U.S. commitment to Northern Ireland and to promote economic prosperity and opportunity for all its people.”
Kennedy previously served as a Massachusetts congressman before losing a Senate bid in 2020. In his new role, he will have, in historical terms, big shoes to fill. The 1998 Good Friday deal was overseen by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the first and by far most important U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland. Mitchell was appointed by Bill Clinton, the only U.S. president to adopt a hands-on interest in ending a three-decade conflict that left more than 3,600 dead.
American envoys have wielded progressively less influence since the days of President George W. Bush, when his State Department appointees Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss focused on pushing the outlawed Irish Republican Army to disarm and renounce violence and its allied Sinn Féin party to accept the lawful authority of Northern Ireland’s police force.
Those once unthinkable moves, achieved in 2005 and 2007 respectively, paved the way for the revival of a power-sharing government uniting British unionists and Irish nationalists — a core goal of the Good Friday accord that once again has collapsed amid Brexit-driven divisions.
But Barack Obama’s envoy, former Senator Gary Hart, and Donald Trump’s man, former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, both came and went without recording any tangible gains. The position has been idle for nearly two years, during which the breakdown-prone Northern Ireland Executive has fallen apart again.
U.S. officials briefed that Kennedy would avoid the political stalemate and focus on economic matters, particularly the prospect of wooing more U.S. corporate investment and jobs to Northern Ireland.
That was also the initial line taken when Clinton — facing British opposition to any direct U.S. intervention within a part of the United Kingdom — first appointed Mitchell to a Belfast role in December 1994. Gradually, Mitchell won enough cross-community trust to become the chairman of the talks, a role that required disciplined and patient diplomacy, including for years after the Good Friday breakthrough.
Officially, all sides welcomed the much-leaked news of Kennedy’s appointment, which is widely seen in Washington circles as a Biden effort to give Kennedy a new political platform following his failed Senate bid.
“The U.S. has been pivotal in supporting peace, stability and prosperity for Northern Ireland. We will continue working together to make Northern Ireland a great place to live, work and do business,” said Chris Heaton-Harris, Britain’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland. “I look forward to welcoming Joe to Belfast in the near future.”
Behind the scenes, some in unionist and British government circles said the Biden administration hadn’t learned a key lesson from the high-profile triumph of Mitchell and low-key effectiveness of the Bush-era envoys — to avoid appointing figures firmly rooted in Irish America and the Catholic side of the traditional divide.
“We seem to be getting one of these classic Irish-American envoys who has no idea what we’re about — that we’re British, not Irish,” one unionist politician involved in the Good Friday negotiations told POLITICO. “We will be polite, even if we have to grit our teeth at times.”
Northern Ireland’s main pro-Brexit party, the Democratic Unionists, offered no comment. The party, which spent a decade opposing the Good Friday deal, has refused to revive power-sharing since May’s Northern Ireland Assembly election, which left them trailing Sinn Féin for the first time.
DUP leaders insist their veto on cooperation has nothing to do with this election setback and everything to do with the post-Brexit trade protocol, which keeps Northern Ireland subject to EU goods rules and makes it harder to receive shipments from Britain. The party recently denounced a visiting U.S. congressional delegation as biased against them.
Unsurprisingly, Sinn Féin and the Irish government offered fulsome praise for Biden’s appointment of a Kennedy.
“I want to thank President Biden and his administration for this appointment. It is a clear demonstration of the president’s direct engagement with Ireland as well as the enduring U.S. commitment to supporting peace in, and building the prosperity of, Northern Ireland,” said Micheál Martin who, until this past weekend, was Ireland’s prime minister. He has just been appointed foreign minister — responsible for leading diplomatic efforts in Northern Ireland — as part of his government’s coalition agreement in Dublin.
“Joe Kennedy has a strong record in promoting the interests of the north and I look forward to working with him,” said Sinn Féin’s would-be first minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill.
The DUP’s moderate rival for unionist votes, Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie, said his community needed to keep an open mind and see Kennedy’s arrival as an opportunity, not a threat.
“Unionism has suffered from not engaging fully with the U.S.A. and this has been something my party has been keen to rebalance,” said Beattie, who welcomed Kennedy’s stated “focus on economic ties.”
Today is Monday, Dec. 19, the 353rd day of 2022. There are 12 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the Republican-controlled House for perjury and obstruction of justice. (Clinton was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.)
On this date:
In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to camp for the winter.
In 1907, 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
In 1946, war broke out in Indochina as troops under Ho Chi Minh launched widespread attacks against the French.
In 1950, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was named commander of the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In 1960, fire broke out on the hangar deck of the nearly completed aircraft carrier USS Constellation at the New York Naval Shipyard; 50 civilian workers were killed.
In 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
In 2001, the fires that had burned beneath the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City for the previous three months were declared extinguished except for a few scattered hot spots.
In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Iraq in “material breach” of a U.N. disarmament resolution.
In 2003, design plans were unveiled for the signature skyscraper — a 1,776-foot glass tower — at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.
In 2008, citing imminent danger to the national economy, President George W. Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry.
In 2011, North Korea announced the death two days earlier of leader Kim Jong Il; North Koreans marched by the thousands to mourn their “Dear Leader” while state media proclaimed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, a “Great Successor.”
In 2016, a truck rammed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State. (The suspected attacker was killed in a police shootout four days later.) A Turkish policeman fatally shot Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibit in Ankara. (The assailant was later killed in a police shootout.)
Ten years ago: Four State Department officials resigned under pressure, less than a day after a damning report blamed management failures for a lack of security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, where militants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. Park Geun-hye (goon-hay), daughter of late South Korean President Park Chung-hee, was elected the country’s first female president.
Five years ago: A bus carrying cruise ship passengers on an excursion to Mayan ruins in southeastern Mexico flipped over on a narrow highway, killing 11 travelers and their guide and injuring about 20 others; eight Americans were among those killed. U.S. health officials approved the nation’s first gene therapy for an inherited disease, a treatment that improves the sight of patients with a rare form of blindness. David Wright, a Massachusetts man who was convicted of leading a plot inspired by the Islamic State to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller, was sentenced in Boston to 28 years in prison.
One year ago: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he could not support his party’s signature $2 trillion social and environment bill, dealing a seemingly fatal blow to President Joe Biden’s leading domestic initiative. (Congress would approve a smaller but still substantive compromise measure in August 2022.) The NHL and its players association temporarily clamped down on teams crossing the Canadian border and shut down operations of two more teams in hopes of salvaging the season as COVID-19 outbreaks spread across the league. Gabriel Boric, a leftist millennial who rose to prominence during anti-government protests, was elected Chile’s next president. Despite rising concerns over the omicron variant, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” achieved the third best opening of all time; studio estimates showed that the Sony and Marvel blockbuster grossed $253 million in ticket sales in North America.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Elaine Joyce is 79. Actor Tim Reid is 78. Musician John McEuen is 77. Singer Janie Fricke is 75. Jazz musician Lenny White is 73. Actor Mike Lookinland is 62. Actor Scott Cohen is 61. Actor Jennifer Beals is 59. Actor Robert MacNaughton is 56. Magician Criss Angel is 55. Rock musician Klaus Eichstadt (Ugly Kid Joe) is 55. Actor Ken Marino is 54. Actor Elvis Nolasco is 54. Actor Kristy Swanson is 53. Model Tyson Beckford is 52. Actor Amy Locane is 51. Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp is 50. Actor Rosa Blasi is 50. Actor Alyssa Milano is 50. Actor Tara Summers is 43. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal (JIH’-lihn-hahl) is 42. Actor Marla Sokoloff is 42. Rapper Lady Sovereign is 37. Journalist Ronan Farrow is 35. Actor Nik Dodani is 29.
Today is Sunday, Dec. 4, the 338th day of 2022. There are 27 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On Dec. 4, 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins gathered for the first and only time for a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.
On this date:
In 1783, Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson left Washington on a trip to France to attend the Versailles (vehr-SY’) Peace Conference.
In 1942, during World War II, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time with a raid on Naples. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
In 1965, the United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard on a two-week mission. (While Gemini 7 was in orbit, its sister ship, Gemini 6A, was launched on Dec. 15 on a one-day mission; the two spacecraft were able to rendezvous within a foot of each other.)
In 1978, San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein (FYN’-styn) was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone (mahs-KOH’-nee).
In 1980, the bodies of four American churchwomen slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five Salvadoran national guardsmen were later convicted of murdering nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel, and lay worker Jean Donovan.)
In 1986, both houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.
In 1995, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.
In 2000, in a pair of legal setbacks for Al Gore, a Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.
In 2016, a North Carolina man armed with a rifle fired several shots inside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, as he attempted to investigate an online conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant; no one was hurt, and the man surrendered to police. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison.)
In 2018, long lines of people wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view the casket of former President George H.W. Bush; former Sen. Bob Dole steadied himself out of his wheelchair to salute his old friend and one-time rival.
Ten years ago: Two Australian radio disc jockeys impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles made a prank call to a London hospital and succeeded in getting a nurse to tell them the condition of the Duchess of Cambridge, who was being treated for acute morning sickness; another nurse who had put the call through would be found dead three days later in an apparent suicide.
Five years ago: Declaring that “public lands will once again be for public use,” President Donald Trump scaled back two sprawling national monuments in Utah; it was the first time in a half century that a president had undone that type of land protection. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries. Trump formally endorsed Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race, looking past sexual misconduct allegations against the GOP candidate.
One year ago: James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of a Michigan teen charged with killing four students at a high school earlier in the week, were arrested in a Detroit commercial building where police said they’d been hiding; a judge later imposed a combined $1 million bond for the couple, who pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting rampage. CNN fired anchor Chris Cuomo less than a week after new information emerged about how he assisted his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as the politician faced sexual harassment allegations earlier in the year. Country musician Stonewall Jackson, who sang on the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years and had No. 1 hits with “Waterloo” and others, died after a long battle with vascular dementia; he was 89.
Today’s Birthdays: Game show host Wink Martindale is 89. Pop singer Freddy Cannon is 86. Actor-producer Max Baer Jr. is 85. Actor Gemma Jones is 80. Rock musician Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) is 80. Singer-musician Chris Hillman is 78. Musician Terry Woods (The Pogues) is 75. Rock singer Southside Johnny Lyon is 74. Actor Jeff Bridges is 73. Rock musician Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd; the Rossington Collins Band) is 71. Actor Patricia Wettig is 71. Actor Tony Todd is 68. Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson is 67. Country musician Brian Prout (Diamond Rio) is 67. Rock musician Bob Griffin (formerly with The BoDeans) is 63. Rock singer Vinnie Dombroski (Sponge) is 60. Actor Marisa Tomei is 58. Actor Chelsea Noble is 58. Actor-comedian Fred Armisen is 56. Rapper Jay-Z is 53. Actor Kevin Sussman is 52. Actor-model Tyra Banks is 49. Country singer Lila McCann is 41. Actor Lindsay Felton is 38. Actor Orlando Brown is 35. MLB pitcher Joe Musgrove is 30. Actor Scarlett Estevez (TV: “Lucifer”) is 15.
BUCHAREST — NATO returns on Tuesday to the scene of one of its most controversial decisions, intent on repeating its vow that Ukraine — now suffering through the 10th month of a war against Russia — will join the world’s biggest military alliance one day.
NATO foreign ministers will gather for two days at the Palace of the Parliament in the Romanian capital Bucharest. It was there in April 2008 that U.S. President George W. Bush persuaded his allies to open NATO’s door to Ukraine and Georgia, over vehement Russian objections.
“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,” the leaders said in a statement. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was at the summit, described this as “a direct threat” to Russia’s security.
About four months later, Russian forces invaded Georgia.
Some experts describe the decision in Bucharest as a massive error that left Russia feeling cornered by a seemingly ever-expanding NATO. NATO counters that it doesn’t pressgang countries into joining, and that some requested membership to seek protection from Russia — as Finland and Sweden are doing now.
More than 14 years on, NATO will pledge this week to support Ukraine long-term as it defends itself against Russian aerial, missile and ground attacks — many of which have struck power grids and other civilian infrastructure, depriving millions of people of electricity and heating.
In a press conference Monday in Bucharest after a meeting with Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted the importance of investing in defense “as we face our greatest security crisis in a generation.”
“We cannot let Putin win,” he said. “This would show authoritarian leaders around the world that they can achieve their goals by using military force — and make the world a more dangerous place for all of us. It is in our own security interests to support Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg noted Russia’s recent bombardment of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, saying Putin “is trying to use winter as a weapon of war against Ukraine” and that “we need to be prepared for more attacks.”
North Macedonia and Montenegro have joined the U.S.-led alliance in recent years. With this, Stoltenberg said last week before travelling to Bucharest, “we have demonstrated that NATO’s door is open and that it is for NATO allies and aspirant countries to decide on membership. This is also the message to Ukraine.”
This gathering in Bucharest is likely to see NATO make fresh pledges of non-lethal support to Ukraine: fuel, electricity generators, medical supplies, winter equipment and drone jamming devices.
Individual allies are also likely to announce fresh supplies of military equipment for Ukraine — chiefly the air defense systems that Kyiv so desperately seeks to protect its skies. NATO as an organization will not offer such supplies, to avoid being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia.
But the ministers, along with their Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, will also look further afield.
“Over the longer term we will help Ukraine transition from Soviet-era equipment to modern NATO standards, doctrine and training,” Stoltenberg said last week. This will not only improve Ukraine’s armed forces and help them to better integrate, it will also meet some of the conditions for membership.
That said, Ukraine will not join NATO anytime soon. With the Crimean Peninsula annexed, and Russian troops and pro-Moscow separatists holding parts of the south and east, it’s not clear what Ukraine’s borders would even look like.
Many of the 30 allies believe the focus now must be uniquely on defeating Russia.
“What we have seen in the last months is that President Putin made a big strategic mistake,” Stoltenberg said. “He underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian armed forces, and the Ukrainian political leadership.”
But even as economic pressure — high electricity and gas prices, plus inflation, all exacerbated by the war — mounts on many allies, Stoltenberg would not press Ukraine to enter into peace talks, and indeed NATO and European diplomats say that Putin does not appear willing to come to the table.
“The war will end at some stage at the negotiating table,” Stoltenberg said Monday. “But the outcome of those negotiations are totally dependent on the situation on the battlefield,” adding “it would be a tragedy for (the) Ukrainian people if President Putin wins.”
The foreign ministers of Bosnia, Georgia and Moldova — three partners that NATO says are under increasing Russian pressure — will also be in Bucharest. Stoltenberg said NATO would “take further steps to help them protect their independence, and strengthen their ability to defend themselves.
Today is Friday, Nov. 25, the 329th day of 2022. There are 36 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 25, 2016, Fidel Castro, who led his rebels to victorious revolution in 1959, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half-century of rule in Cuba, died at age 90.
On this date:
In 1783, the British evacuated New York during the Revolutionary War.
In 1914, baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio was born in Martinez, California.
In 1915, a new version of the Ku Klux Klan, targeting blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants, was founded by William Joseph Simmons.
In 1947, movie studio executives meeting in New York agreed to blacklist the “Hollywood Ten” who’d been cited for contempt of Congress the day before.
In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.
In 1961, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, was commissioned.
In 1963, the body of President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery; his widow, Jacqueline, lighted an “eternal flame” at the gravesite.
In 1986, the Iran-Contra affair erupted as President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.
In 1999, Elian Gonzalez, a 5-year-old Cuban boy, was rescued by a pair of sport fishermen off the coast of Florida, setting off an international custody battle.
In 2001, as the war in Afghanistan entered its eighth week, CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann was killed during a prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, becoming America’s first combat casualty of the conflict.
In 2002, President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security, and appointed Tom Ridge to be its head.
In 2009, Toyota said it would replace the gas pedals on 4 million vehicles in the United States because the pedals could get stuck in the floor mats and cause sudden acceleration.
Ten years ago: Rioters stormed a Muslim Brotherhood headquarters building in northern Egypt on the third day of street battles following a power grab by President Mohammed Morsi. YouTube announced that “Gangnam Style” by South Korean rapper PSY had become the site’s most viewed video to that time, with more than 805 million viewings.
Five years ago: On what was designated as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, President Emmanuel Macron launched an initiate to combat violence and harassment against women in France and change what he described as France’s sexist culture. A volcano on the Indonesian island of Bali rumbled to life, temporarily disrupting some international flights to the popular tourist destination. Veteran Hollywood actor Rance Howard, the father of director Ron Howard, died at the age of 89.
One year ago: France launched a plan to give COVID-19 booster shots to all adults. A methane explosion in a coal mine in Siberia quickly filled the mine with toxic smoke; authorities said 46 miners and five rescuers were killed. Giant balloons once again wafted through miles of Manhattan as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade returned in full, a year after being crimped by the coronavirus pandemic. Italy’s government said National Geographic magazine’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl,” Sharbat Gulla, had arrived in Italy as part of the West’s evacuation of Afghans following the Taliban takeover of the country.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Kathryn Crosby is 89. Actor Christopher Riordan is 85. Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs is 82. Singer Bob Lind is 80. Author, actor and economist Ben Stein is 78. Actor John Larroquette is 75. Actor Tracey Walter is 75. Movie director Jonathan Kaplan is 75. Author Charlaine Harris is 71. Retired MLB All-Star Bucky Dent is 71. Dance judge Bruno Tonioli (TV: “Dancing with the Stars”) is 67. Singer Amy Grant is 62. Former NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar is 59. Rock musician Eric Grossman (K’s Choice) is 58. Rock musician Scott Mercado is 58. Rock singer-musician Tim Armstrong is 57. Actor Steve Harris is 57. Actor Billy Burke is 56. Singer Stacy Lattisaw is 56. Rock musician Rodney Sheppard (Sugar Ray) is 56. Rapper-producer Erick Sermon is 54. Actor Jill Hennessy is 53. Actor Christina Applegate is 51. Actor Eddie Steeples is 49. Actor Kristian Nairn is 47. Former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb is 46. Actor Jill Flint is 45. Actor Jerry Ferrara is 43. Actor Joel Kinnaman is 43. Actor Valerie Azlynn is 42. Former first daughter Barbara Pierce Bush is 41. Former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager is 41. Actor Katie Cassidy is 36. Actor Stephanie Hsu is 32. Contemporary Christian singer Jamie Grace is 31.
Several Twitter users have already begun exploiting the revamped Twitter Blue by receiving the blue check mark and pretending to be celebrities and politicians. Twitter Blue, which now costs $8 a month, is stirring confusion about which of the platforms’ accounts are real.
A verified Twitter account that had Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James’ name and a current profile photo of his family requested a trade, thanked Lakers fans and suggested he was going back to Cleveland. At a quick glance, the tweet looked real, but the handle was @KINGJamez, not the authentic @KingJames one. The tweet was deleted, and the account appears to have lost its verified status.
Another Twitter user pretended to be New York Yankees pitcher Aroldis Chapman and announced he was signing an extension with the team. That account was suspended and the tweet was deleted.
Following sports transactions and news could become a total mess with the new verification system
Two accounts that claimed to belong to former President George W. Bush and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair exchanged tweets about how they “miss killing Iraqis.” Another impersonated ESPN reporter Adam Shefter and in a tweet claimed Las Vegas Raiders coach Josh McDaniels had been fired. All three accounts were suspended.
CBS News reached out to Twitter for a statement.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who took over late last month, said any handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying they’re a parody account would be permanently suspended. While parody accounts and impersonations have always existed on the platform, experts and users warned that putting a price on verified badges could sow confusion, misinformation and scams.
Previously, as a way to distinguish some accounts, Musk rolled out a gray “official” check mark next to some accounts to indicate the social media company had verified their authenticity. However, within hours of the experiment, he scrapped the plan.
According to Twitter, only accounts subscribed to Twitter Blue on iOS on or after Wednesday are eligible for the blue checkmark moving forward.
In a midterm year with high turnouts expected and a number of close races that will decide which party controls the Senate, election results—which hinge on a labyrinth of rules that vary widely by state—may not become clear for days or even weeks.
MADISON, WI – NOVEMBER 20: A election worker shows ballots to representatives for President Donald … [+] Trump during the presidential recount vote for Dane County on November 20, 2020 in Madison, Wisconsin. President Donald Trump requested a recount of ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties in Wisconsin, hoping to overturn his narrow defeat in the state to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Trump’s campaign paid the state $3 million to cover the cost of the recount. (Photo by Andy Manis/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Key Facts
Georgia: The Senate race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Republican Herschel Walker will head to a runoff election in four weeks if neither candidate wins 50% of votes (a likely scenario considering the candidates are polling within less than two points of each other), but counties are required to report absentee results by 5 p.m. on the day after the election, per a sweeping voting law change enacted in 2021.
Pennsylvania: The process of opening and counting mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania—where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) and Republican Mehmet Oz are in a tight race for the Senate—can’t begin until Election Day and will likely take days, Pennsylvania acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman has repeatedly warned.
Nevada: Several factors could delay voting results, including the state’s practice of sending absentee ballots to all voters per legislation passed in 2021, along with rules that require election workers to wait until the polls close to begin counting absentee ballots (ballots postmarked by November 8 can be counted as long as they’re received by November 12).
Michigan: Results are expected to be delayed at least a day due to a high volume of absentee ballots, Secretary of State Joceyln Benson said Thursday, noting more than 1.1 million absentee ballots have been returned, the majority of which are likely from people who historically voted Democrat, but they can not be opened or tabulated until polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Arizona: The state, where a large share of the population votes by mail, can begin counting absentee ballots ahead of the election, but Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who is also running for governor, has said day-of results are “just not going to happen,” she said in October.
Wisconsin: Wisconsin can begin counting absentee ballots once the polls open on Election Day, but results are not expected “until the early morning hours after Election Day,” Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson Riley Vetterkind said in a recent statement to The Hill.
Alaska: The state could be one of the last to produce results, because elections are done by ranked-choice voting and absentee ballot-counting can’t begin until after the polls close on Election Day—if one candidate wins the majority, they are declared the winner and the process stops there, but if no candidate wins the majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the second choice of voters who selected the eliminated candidate are reallocated, a process that continues until two candidates are left and the one with the most votes wins.
Key Background
Following the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his supporters claimed results should be determined the night the polls close–an effort to discredit the absentee ballot-counting process in a year when nearly 60% of Biden voters cast ballots by mail. While results did take longer in 2020 due to high percentages of voters in both parties choosing to vote early and avoid the polls on Election Day amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump falsely claimed that results have historically been determined on Election Day. In fact, delays in election results date back more than a century. In 1876, Americans waited four months before former President Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the election, and in 2000, former President George W. Bush won after a month-long recount in Florida that ended in a Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Tangent
A number of GOP candidates have not committed to accepting election results, including Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. Both candidates have pushed unfounded fraud claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in President Joe Biden’s favor.
Big Number
36,436,068. That’s the number of early in-person votes and mail-in ballots tallied (but not yet certified) as of Friday, according to the US Elections Project. Turnout this year is expected to rival 2018, when 53.4% of the eligible population voted in the midterm election, the highest rate since at least 1978.
Today is Sunday, Oct. 16, the 289th day of 2022. There are 76 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 16, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis began as President John F. Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
On this date:
In 1758, American lexicographer Noah Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1793, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was beheaded.
In 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry in what was then a part of western Virginia. (Ten of Brown’s men were killed and five escaped. Brown and six followers were captured; all were executed.)
In 1934, Chinese Communists, under siege by the Nationalists, began their “long march” lasting a year from southeastern to northwestern China.
In 1964, China set off its first atomic bomb, codenamed “596,” on the Lop Nur Test Ground.
In 1968, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos sparked controversy at the Mexico City Olympics by giving “Black power” salutes during a victory ceremony after they’d won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race.
In 1978, the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chose Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (voy-TEE’-wah) to be the new pope; he took the name John Paul II.
In 1984, Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of non-violent struggle for racial equality in South Africa.
In 1991, a deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as a gunman opened fire at a Luby’s Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life.
In 1997, in the first known case in the United States, a Georgia woman gave birth after being implanted with previously frozen eggs.
In 2002, President George W. Bush signed a congressional resolution authorizing war against Iraq. The White House announced that North Korea had disclosed it had a nuclear weapons program.
In 2009, agricultural officials said pigs in Minnesota had tested positive for the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, the first such cases in the U.S.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney met for their second debate; during the town-hall-style encounter in suburban Hempstead, New York, Obama accused Romney of favoring a “one-point plan” to help the rich at the expense of the middle class while Romney countered by saying “the middle class has been crushed over the last four years.”
Five years ago: Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been captured and held by the Taliban for five years after walking away from his post in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty to desertion and endangering his comrades. (A military judge later decided not to send him to prison.) A New Jersey man, Ahmad Khan Rahimi, was convicted of planting two pressure-cooker bombs on New York City streets, including one that injured 30 people; prosecutors said Rahimi considered himself “a soldier in a holy war against Americans.” (Rahimi was sentenced to life in prison.)
One year ago: Seventeen missionaries from a U.S.-based organization were kidnapped in Haiti; five children were among them. (Two of the hostages were released in November for medical reasons; the remaining 15 went free in December.) An 11th-hour deal was reached, averting a strike of film and television crews that would have frozen productions in Hollywood and across the U.S. Betty Lynn, the film and television actor who was best known for her role as Barney Fife’s sweetheart Thelma Lou on “The Andy Griffith Show,” died at the age of 95.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor-producer Tony Anthony is 85. Actor Barry Corbin is 82. Sportscaster Tim McCarver is 81. Rock musician C.F. Turner (Bachman-Turner Overdrive) is 79. Actor Suzanne Somers is 76. Rock singer-musician Bob Weir is 75. Producer-director David Zucker is 75. Record company executive Jim Ed Norman is 74. Actor Daniel Gerroll is 71. Actor Martha Smith is 70. Comedian-actor Andy Kindler is 66. Actor-director Tim Robbins is 64. Actor-musician Gary Kemp is 63. Singer-musician Bob Mould is 62. Actor Randy Vasquez is 61. Rock musician Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) is 60. Movie director Kenneth Lonergan is 60. Actor Christian Stolte is 60. Actor Todd Stashwick is 54. Actor Terri J. Vaughn is 53. Singer Wendy Wilson (Wilson Phillips) is 53. Rock singer Chad Gray (Mudvayne) is 51. Actor Paul Sparks is 51. Actor Kellie Martin is 47. Singer John Mayer is 45. Actor Jeremy Jackson is 42. Actor Caterina Scorsone is 42. Actor Brea Grant is 41. U.S. Olympic and retired WNBA basketball star Sue Bird is 41. Actor Kyler Pettis is 30. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper is 30. Tennis star Naomi Osaka is 25.
Today is Saturday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2022. There are 84 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.
On this date:
In 1914, the World War I song “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” by Ivor Novello and Lena Guilbert Ford, was first published in London under the title ”‘Till the Boys Come Home.”
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tennessee, that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.
In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.
In 1985, the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (ah-KEE’-leh LOW’-roh) killed American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, who was in a wheelchair, and threw his body overboard.
In 1997, scientists reported the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life.
In 1998, the House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings.
In 2002, a federal judge approved President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10-day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 to $2 billion a day.
In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.
In 2010, British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who’d been taken captive in Afghanistan, was killed during a U.S. special forces rescue attempt, apparently by a U.S. grenade.
In 2016, Donald Trump vowed on Twitter to continue his campaign; many Republicans were calling on Trump to abandon his presidential bid in the wake of the release of a 2005 video in which he made lewd remarks about women and appeared to condone sexual assault.
In 2020, authorities in Michigan said six men had been charged with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power.” (Two of the six pleaded guilty, two others were acquitted and the remaining two were convicted at a retrial in August 2022.) Democrat Joe Biden said President Donald Trump’s tweet earlier in the year to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” may have encouraged the alleged kidnapping plot.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama designated the Keene, California, home of Cesar Chavez, the late founder of the United Farmworkers Union, as a national monument.
Five years ago: Harvey Weinstein was fired from The Weinstein Company amid allegations that he was responsible for decades of sexual harassment against female actors and employees. Vice President Mike Pence left the 49ers-Colts game in Indianapolis after about a dozen San Francisco players took a knee during the national anthem; Pence tweeted that he wouldn’t “dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag or our National Anthem.”
One year ago: The White House said President Joe Biden would not block the handover of documents sought by a House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Federal prosecutors announced that they would not file charges against a white police officer who shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Wisconsin in August 2020. A federal appeals court allowed the nation’s toughest abortion law to go back into effect in Texas; the order came just one day after a lower court sided with the Biden administration and suspended the law. Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.
Today’s Birthdays: Entertainment reporter Rona Barrett is 86. Actor Paul Hogan is 83. R&B singer Fred Cash (The Impressions) is 82. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 81. Comedian Chevy Chase is 79. Author R.L. Stine is 79. Actor Dale Dye is 78. Country singer Susan Raye is 78. TV personality Sarah Purcell is 74. R&B singer Airrion Love (The Stylistics) is 73. Actor Sigourney Weaver is 73. R&B singer Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 72. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 70. Actor Michael Dudikoff is 68. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 67. Actor Stephanie Zimbalist is 66. Actor Kim Wayans is 61. Rock singer Steve Perry (Cherry Poppin’ Daddies) is 59. Actor Ian Hart is 58. Gospel/R&B singer CeCe Winans is 58. Rock musician C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 57. Actor-producer Karyn Parsons is 56. Singer-producer Teddy Riley is 56. Actor Emily Procter is 54. Actor Dylan Neal is 53. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 52. Actor-comedian Robert Kelly is 52. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is 52. Actor Martin Henderson is 48. Actor Kristanna Loken is 43. Rock-soul singer-musician Noelle Scaggs (Fitz and the Tantrums) is 43. Actor Nick Cannon is 42. Actor J.R. Ramirez is 42. Actor Max Crumm is 37. Singer-songwriter-producer Bruno Mars is 37. Actor Angus T. Jones is 29. Actor Molly Quinn is 29. Actor/singer Bella Thorne is 25.
Chris Thomas has made democracy his life’s work. A 73-year-old attorney, Thomas spent nearly four decades leading the elections division in the office of Michigan’s secretary of state. He served under Republicans and Democrats alike, and his mandate was always the same: protect the ballot box. He trained local election workers; sought out and fixed weaknesses in the voting system; investigated errors committed while ballots were collected and tabulated; and, ultimately, ensured the accuracy of the count. Thomas was one of 10 people named to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration in 2013. He earned a reputation as a nonpartisan authority on all things elections, and took pride in supervising a system that was stable and widely trusted.
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Which is why 2020 shook him so badly. Thomas had retired from the secretary of state’s office a few years earlier, confident that Michigan’s elections were in good hands. Then the coronavirus pandemic arrived, prompting changes to election protocols nationwide, and President Donald Trump began warning of a Democratic plot to steal the election. As Michigan rolled out new voting rules—some that had been decided prior to 2020, others that were implemented on the fly during the pandemic—rumors and misinformation spread. Wanting to help, Thomas accepted a special assignment to supervise Election Day activities in Detroit, the state’s largest voting jurisdiction.
What followed was surreal—a scene that Thomas could scarcely believe was playing out in the United States. Michigan had recently expanded absentee voting, allowing any resident to vote by mail for any reason. Because Democrats are likelier than Republicans to vote absentee—and because Detroit is predominantly Democratic—Thomas and his colleagues had to process an unprecedented number of absentee ballots. Complicating matters further, Republican lawmakers in Michigan refused to let election workers start counting absentee ballots until Election Day.
The effect was predictable. Because of the backlog of absentee ballots, Trump took a big lead on Election Night. As Thomas and his team worked into the early hours, Trump’s lead shrank. By Wednesday afternoon, it was clear that Joe Biden would overtake him. “That’s when things got out of hand,” Thomas told me.
Incited by Trump’s acolytes in the state party, hundreds of Republican voters swarmed the event center in Detroit where Thomas and his workers were tabulating votes. Republicans had their allotted number of poll watchers already inside the counting room, but party officials lied to the public, saying they had been locked out. So people busted into the event center, banging on the windows, filming the election workers, demanding to be let into the counting room. Fearing for their safety—and for the integrity of the ballots—the people inside covered the windows. Thomas says the decision was necessary. But within minutes, video was circulating on social media of the windows being covered, and before long, it was airing on Fox News with commentary about a cover-up.
Trump was alleging a national plot to steal the election, and now Detroit—and Chris Thomas—were right in the middle of it.
The GOP assault on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory has led to death threats against election workers and a lethal siege of the United States Capitol. But perhaps the gravest consequence is the erosion of confidence in our system. Late this summer, a Quinnipiac poll found that 69 percent of both Republicans and Democrats believe that American democracy “is in danger of collapse.” They hold this view for somewhat different reasons. Republicans believe that Democrats already rigged an election against them and will do so again if given the chance; Democrats believe that Republicans, convinced that 2020 was stolen despite all evidence to the contrary, are now readying to rig future elections. It’s hard to see how this ends well. By the presidential election of 2024, a constitutional crisis might be unavoidable.
I’ve met men and women like Thomas in small towns and big counties, public servants who have devoted their career to safeguarding the infrastructure of our democracy. Over the past two years, they have been harassed, intimidated, and in many cases driven out of office, some replaced by right-wing activists who are more loyal to the Republican Party than to the rule of law. The old guard—the people who, like Thomas, committed their career to free and fair elections—are witnessing their life’s work being undone. They are watching the rise of Trump-mimicking candidates in this year’s midterm elections and wondering if anything can stop the collapse of our most essential institution. “This election,” Thomas said, “feels like a last stand.”
The irony is that America’s voting system is far more advanced and secure than it was just two decades ago.
The 2000 election was a catalyst for reform. Mass confusion surrounding the showdown between Al Gore and George W. Bush in Florida—butterfly ballots, punch cards, hanging chads—demonstrated that murky processes and obsolete technology could undermine public confidence in the system. Recognizing the threat, Congress passed a law to help local administrators modernize their voting machines and better train their workers and volunteers. Elections officials from around the country began collaborating on best practices. Several states introduced wholesale changes to their systems that allowed ballots to be cast more easily, tracked more accurately, and counted more efficiently.
There were hiccups, but the results were overwhelmingly positive. One study conducted by MIT and Caltech showed that the number of “lost” votes—ballots that because of some combination of clerical rejection and human error went unrecorded—had been cut in half from 2000 to 2004. Florida, once synonymous with electoral dysfunction, now has arguably the most efficient vote-reporting program in the U.S.
At the same time, the machinations that Americans observed—poll workers studying ballots through a magnifying glass, teams of party lawyers and CNN camera crews looking on—bred a public skepticism that never quite went away. In the years following Bush v. Gore, the number of cases of election litigation soared. The small chorus of congressional Democrats who objected to the certification of Bush’s 2000 victory swelled to several dozen following the president’s reelection in 2004, with 31 House Democrats (and one Democratic senator) voting to effectively disenfranchise the people of Ohio. Republicans could not return the favor in 2008—Obama’s margin of victory was too wide—so they sought to delegitimize his presidency with talk of birth certificates and mass voter fraud, introducing measures to restrict voting access despite never producing evidence that cheating was taking place at any meaningful scale.
Much of this can be attributed to what Richard Hasen, a law professor and an elections expert, has called “the loser’s effect”: Studies have shown that voters report more confidence in our elections after their party or candidate has won. But partisan outcomes are no longer the decisive factor: In October 2020—weeks before Trump lost his bid for reelection—Gallup reported that just 44 percent of Republicans trusted that votes would be cast and counted accurately, “a record low for either party.”
This isn’t entirely surprising, given Trump’s crusade to undermine our democratic institutions, which began well before he was ever elected. In 2012, he called Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney “a total sham,” adding: “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty.” In early 2016, after losing the Iowa caucus to Ted Cruz, Trump called the chair of the Iowa GOP and pressured him to disavow the result; when that failed, he took to Twitter, denouncing the “fraud” in Iowa and calling for a new election to be held.
By the time November 3, 2020, arrived, Trump had already constructed his elaborate narrative of a rigged election. Republican leaders did little to keep their voters from falling for the president’s deception. In fact, most of them enabled and even participated in it. What began as a fringe movement after Bush v. Gore has spread into the GOP mainstream: Polls continue to show that more than half of all Republican voters believe that the 2020 election was stolen.
They are acting on Trump’s lies, flooding into local party offices, demanding to be stationed on the front lines of the next election so they can prevent it from being stolen. They have nominated scores of candidates who deny the legitimacy of Biden’s victory; seven are running to become the chief elections official in their state. Several of these Republicans—Mark Finchem in Arizona, Kristina Karamo in Michigan—are hinting at administrative actions that would reverse decades of progress in making elections more transparent and accessible, in turn leaving our system more vulnerable.
The great threat is no longer machines malfunctioning or ballots being spoiled. It is the actual theft of an election; it is the brazen abuse of power that requires not only bad actors in high places but the tacit consent of the voters who put them there.
This makes for a terrifying scenario in 2024—but first, a crucial test in 2022.
In August, when Michigan held its primary elections, all eyes were on the Republican race for governor. It had been a volatile contest; two of the perceived front-runners had been disqualified for failing to reach signature thresholds. Most of the remaining candidates were champions of Trump’s Big Lie, but none more so than Ryan Kelley, who participated in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and was arrested this past June by the FBI on misdemeanor charges. (Kelley pleaded not guilty in July.)
When the returns came in and Kelley lost, he refused to concede. Instead, he called for a “publicly supervised hand recount to uphold election integrity.” But Kelley had a problem: He had finished in fourth place, capturing just 15 percent of the vote and losing to the Republican nominee by 25 points.
It was a similar story in another closely watched Michigan race. State Senator Lana Theis, a Republican who’d co-written a committee report debunking Trump’s voter-fraud allegations after the 2020 election, defeated a MAGA conspiracy theorist, Mike Detmer, by 15 points in their primary contest. Detmer’s response? “When we have full, independent, unfettered forensic audits of 2020 and 2022 I’ll consider the results,” he wrote on his Facebook page. This pattern has played out in races all across the country, with sore Republican losers doing their best Trump impressions, alleging fraud to explain a drubbing at the ballot box.
“This gives me real hope,” Thomas told me in early September. “Because people understand, when there’s a margin like that, you lost. And if you’re going to insist you didn’t lose, well, now people are going to be skeptical of what you’ve been telling them all along. Is the sky really falling? You can only tell a lie so many times before people stop listening to you.”
His optimism struck me as misplaced. For one thing, these were just primary elections. Tudor Dixon, the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee in Michigan, is herself a 2020 conspiracy theorist. In fact, all three Republicans on top of the statewide ticket this fall—Dixon, as well as the nominees for attorney general and secretary of state—have claimed that Democrats stole the election. Michigan’s GOP lawmakers have not allowed changes to vote-processing laws despite the chaos of 2020. In the event of close Democratic victories in November, we can expect another “red mirage,” in which the Republican nominee jumps out to a big lead soon after the polls close, only to fall behind as the backlog of absentee ballots is counted. The conspiracy theories will practically spread themselves.
Sensing my skepticism, Thomas told me there was additional cause for hope. Two years ago, the Republican volunteers who monitored the vote-counting in Detroit on behalf of the party were completely out of their depth; most had never worked an election, and thus confused standard protocols for what they swore in affidavits were violations of the law. Following the grassroots outcry of November 2020, the Michigan GOP recruited hordes of new volunteers who have since received enhanced training. Thomas says his first encounter with this new class of Republican poll watchers came this summer, on primary day in Detroit, where he was once again tasked with overseeing the count. “It was night and day from 2020. They were respectful,” he said. “There were no issues.”
Hours after I finished speaking with Thomas, CNN published a report exposing a Zoom training seminar in which Republican leaders in Wayne County, Michigan—home to Detroit—instructed poll watchers to ignore election rules and smuggle in pens, paper, and cellphones to document Democratic cheating. That seminar was held on August 1—the day before Michigan’s primary.
I want to believe our system of self-government is durable enough to withstand all of this; I want to believe Thomas, that everything will be all right. But as we spoke, it struck me that, despite his expertise, and despite his ringside seat to the unraveling of our democracy, Thomas is like millions of other Americans who can’t quite bring themselves to face what’s happening. Like so many of them, he clings to fleeting hints of a return to normalcy and ignores the flood of evidence suggesting it will not come. He still trusts a system that is actively being sabotaged.
Thomas has never belonged to a party. He remains proudly nonpartisan. But he acknowledges what must happen in 2022 for America to swerve off the road to national calamity. The Republicans who have made election denying the centerpiece of their campaign must lose, and lose badly. They will cry fraud and demand recounts and refuse to concede. They will throw tantrums sufficient to draw attention to their margins of defeat. At that point, Thomas says, maybe a critical mass of GOP voters—the very people who supported these candidates in the first place—will finally realize that they’ve been duped. Maybe they will abandon the lies and choose a different path before it is too late.
But based on the number of candidates who sold a lie to earn their spot on the November ballot, in Michigan and beyond, I fear it may already be.
This article appears in the November 2022 print edition with the headline “Bad Losers.”
