Politics Election category, Page 196
Michigan high court asked to OK ballot question on abortion
LANSING, Mich. — An abortion-rights group on Thursday asked the Michigan Supreme Court to approve a November ballot question on whether a right to abortion should be enshrined in the state constitution. Reproductive Freedom for All filed its request with the high court after the state canvassing board rejected the...
Doug Mastriano sues Jan. 6 committee over deposition authority
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor on Thursday sued the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, contesting its legal ability to force him to answer questions about it. The lawsuit filed by Doug Mastriano contends that the committee lacks appointees of House Minority...
Biden at Independence Hall: Trump, allies threaten democracy
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden warned Thursday night that “equality and democracy are under assault” in the U.S. as he sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and “MAGA Republican” adherents, labeling them an extremist threat to the nation and its future. Aiming to reframe the November elections as...
Fetterman says no to Oz offer to debate, calls list of ‘concessions’ insulting
John Fetterman isn’t about to debate opponent Mehmet Oz, saying the GOP candidate’s campaign thinks “it is funny to mock” his recovery from a stroke. “I’m eager to put my record and my values up against Dr. Oz’s any day of the week,” Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, said in a...
More Republicans backing Josh Shapiro for Pennsylvania governor
The ranks of Republicans rejecting State Sen. Doug Mastriano, their party’s nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, grew this week as a former national security Cabinet member and a former Trump administration lawyer endorsed the Democratic nominee, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary for the U.S....
Biden defends FBI, promotes ban on assault-style weaponsVideo
WILKES-BARRE — President Joe Biden on Tuesday forcefully defended the FBI as the agency and its employees have come under withering criticism and threats of violence since executing a search warrant at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence earlier this month. “It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the...
Fetterman says Biden should decriminalize marijuana ahead of Pittsburgh visit
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman has called on President Joe Biden to reclassify marijuana before Biden visits Pittsburgh on Monday. Fetterman, a long-time champion of recreational marijuana, also said he would like for Biden to decriminalize the drug at the federal level. “It’s long past time that we finally...
Oz courts GOP voters at town hall event in Monroeville
Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former TV personality and celebrity surgeon, has struggled with his approval ratings ever since narrowly winning the Republican primary election in May, and at a campaign event in Monroeville he attempted to persuade his Republican base to come out and support his campaign for Pennsylvania’s open...
Sen. Lindsey Graham warns of ‘riots’ if Trump is prosecutedVideo
Sen. Lindsey Graham warned there “will be riots in the streets” if former President Donald Trump is indicted. “If they tried to prosecute President Trump … there literally will be riots in the street,” the South Carolina Republican said on Fox News. “I worry about the country.” Despite mounting evidence...
Biden will give prime-time speech about democracy from Philadelphia
President Joe Biden will give a prime-time speech Thursday from outside Independence Hall, warning about threats to democracy, as he makes a swing of appearances to boost Democrats with roughly two months until the midterm election. Biden will speak about “how the core values of this nation — our standing...
Josh Shapiro breaks with Democrats on covid policies in governor’s race
HARRISBURG — As attorney general, Josh Shapiro went to court repeatedly to defend Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration against legal challenges to his pandemic-era mandates and shutdowns. Now, as he’s running to succeed Wolf as governor, Shapiro says he is against some of the same covid-19 containment measures that his...
President Biden to visit Pittsburgh
President Joe Biden is planning a Labor Day trip to Pittsburgh, the White House announced. The location wasn’t specified, but in a statement, the White House on Monday said Biden “will deliver remarks to celebrate Labor Day and the dignity of American workers.” Biden will also travel to Milwaukee that...
‘Free Staters’ roil New Hampshire politics in ski area spat
CONCORD, N.H. — As a former ski resort executive, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu knows something about navigating slippery slopes. But recent controversy at a county-owned ski area has raised questions about his grip on the Republican Party heading into the November elections. Sununu, who is seeking his fourth term,...
Democrats: Abortion rulings may be ‘a blessing in disguise’
RALEIGH, N.C. — Democratic candidates have decried North Carolina’s newly reinstated abortion restrictions after a federal judge allowed a state law banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to go into effect. But some North Carolina Democrats say the ruling earlier this month — the latest fallout of...
Trump search: What may come next in inquiry with legal peril
WASHINGTON — A newly released FBI document helps flesh out the contours of an investigation into classified material at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. But plenty of questions remain, especially because half the affidavit, which spelled out the FBI’s rationale for searching the property, was blacked out. That document,...
Doug Mastriano wore Confederate Army uniform in Army War College faculty photo
PHILADELPHIA — State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, appeared during his time on the faculty of the Army War College in an official photograph while wearing a Civil War Confederate Army uniform. That photograph, first reported Friday night by Reuters, was recently removed from the...
Mehmet Oz pounces on John Fetterman for not committing to debates: ‘Come talk to us’
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz’s campaign has seized on Democratic opponent John Fetterman’s silence on debates to continue attacking Fetterman for supposedly hiding from voters. Oz has agreed to five debates, including one scheduled in less than two weeks, but Fetterman, who suffered a stroke on May 13...
Insulin cap for Medicare patients signals hope for others
WASHINGTON — Years before he came to the Senate, Raphael Warnock spent time bedside with Georgia residents suffering from the long-term effects of diabetes, a condition made worse by limited access to life-saving drugs like insulin. “I’ve seen the human face of this up close as a pastor. I’ve been...
2 plead guilty in scheme to sell Biden’s daughter’s diary
NEW YORK — Two Florida residents have pleaded guilty in a scheme to peddle a diary and other items belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter to the conservative group Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said Thursday. Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of...
Panel: Trump staffers pushed unproven covid treatment at FDA
WASHINGTON — Officials in the Trump White House tried to pressure U.S. health experts into reauthorizing a discredited covid-19 treatment, according to a congressional investigation that provides new evidence of that administration’s efforts to override Food and Drug Administration decisions early in the pandemic. The report Wednesday by the Democratic-led...
Memo sheds light on decision to clear Trump in Russia probe
WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials who evaluated then-President Donald Trump’s actions during the Russia investigation concluded that nothing he did, including firing the FBI director, rose to the level of obstruction of justice and that there was no precedent for a prosecution, according to a memo released Wednesday. The nine-page...
Pennsylvania’s poll worker recruitment effort drew 1,100 last week
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania elections officials said Wednesday that a push last week to recruit new poll workers produced more than 1,100 applicants, including at least one in 58 of 67 counties. The effort tied to Help America Vote Day, organized by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, brought in the most...
More than 100 classified Trump docs recovered back in January
WASHINGTON — The National Archives and Records Administration recovered more than 100 documents bearing classified markings, totaling more than 700 pages, from an initial batch of 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, according to newly public government correspondence with the Trump legal team. The numbers make clear the...
Paul Pelosi gets 5 days in jail, 3 years of probation in DUI
SAN FRANCISCO — The husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation. Paul Pelosi already served two days in...
Court orders release of memo about Russia probe from Justice Department to Barr
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department must release a 2019 memo advising then-Attorney General Bill Barr on how to handle the conclusion of the Mueller investigation and the department’s decision not to charge Donald Trump, a federal appeals court ruled. The 3-0 decision Friday, by a panel of judges of...
