Politics Election category, Page 287
VP Mike Pence stops in Westmoreland, rallies pro-life voters at Murrysville church
Anti-abortion activists from across the region gathered Wednesday at Cornerstone Ministries in Murrysville as Vice President Mike Pence addressed the kick-off of the Susan B. Anthony List’s campaign to engage pro-life voters in Pennsylvania. The visit to the large, nondenominational church marked Pence’s third appearance with the group. Long a...
Trump releases list of 20 new possible Supreme Court picksVideo
WASHINGTON — Hoping to replicate a strategy that has long been seen as key to his appeal among conservative voters, President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he is adding 20 names to a list of Supreme Court candidates that he’s pledged to choose from if he has future vacancies to...
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge: Election Day could be election month without reform
Pennsylvania is one of seven states that don’t allow mail-in ballots to be processed and counted until Election Day. County and state officials say that could be disastrous in a year when the commonwealth is grappling with a pandemic and millions of people are expected to vote by mail. Former...
Bob Woodward book: Trump said of coronavirus, ‘I wanted to always play it down’Video
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump talked privately about the severity of the coronavirus threat even as he was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than the seasonal flu and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control, according to a new book by journalist Bob...
Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian lawmaker
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A far-right Norwegian lawmaker said Wednesday that he has nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the Middle East. Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament for the far-right Progress Party, said Trump should be considered because of his work...
5 questions that will help decide the presidential race in Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA — When a major Democratic political group presented a chart last week projecting each party’s path to victory in the presidential race, Pennsylvania sat dead center: the state most likely to decide the winner, and one of the most competitive. It’s so closely balanced it’s impossible to name just...
Federal judge rejects lawsuit seeking Texas voting changes during pandemic
AUSTIN — A federal judge in San Antonio dismissed a lawsuit seeking greater accommodations for voter safety during the coronavirus pandemic. The lawsuit, filed by civil rights groups and two voters, sought a court order requiring face masks at polls and other changes to alleviate crowding, including more polling locations,...
McConnell sets up vote on Republican relief plan Pelosi rejectsVideo
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders hardened their battle lines on additional fiscal stimulus on Tuesday, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi labeling Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s proposal for a slimmed-down package “fraudulent.” The Republican bill, featuring some of the aspects of a $1 trillion proposal they put forth a month...
Justice Department seeks to provide Trump defense in lawsuit by columnist who claims he raped her
The Justice Department is seeking to take over the defense of President Donald Trump in a defamation suit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claims Trump raped her two decades ago. In a court filing Tuesday, the Justice Department said Trump was acting “within the scope” of his...
House to investigate Louis DeJoy for possible campaign law violationsVideo
WASHINGTON — House Democrats said Tuesday they will investigate whether Postmaster General Louis DeJoy encouraged employees at his former business to contribute to Republican candidates and then reimbursed them in the guise of bonuses, a violation of campaign finance laws. Five people who worked for DeJoy’s former company, New Breed...
Southwest Pennsylvania again takes center stage in presidential campaigns this week
Pennsylvania’s importance in the Nov. 3 election is apparent again this week in a series of stops planned in the Pittsburgh region by the Trump and Biden campaigns. Former Vice President Joe Biden stopped in Harrisburg on Monday for Labor Day. The week will ramp up Wednesday with Vice President...
In battleground states, absentee ballot rejections could triple
ATLANTA — Thousands of absentee ballots get rejected in every presidential election. This year, that problem could be much worse and potentially pivotal in hotly contested battleground states. With the coronavirus creating a surge in mail-in balloting and postal delays reported across the country, the number of rejected ballots in...
Trump open to inquiry into Louis DeJoy and campaign contributions
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he’s open to an investigation of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy following published reports that former employees of DeJoy, a major donor to Trump and other Republicans, said they felt pressured to make campaign contributions to GOP candidates. The president also said Monday that DeJoy...
Trump questions Pentagon leaders’ motives
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday that top Defense Department leaders want to keep waging wars in order to keep defense contractors “happy.” Trump continues to fight allegations that he made offensive comments about fallen U.S. service-members, including calling World War I dead at an American military cemetery in...
In Labor Day blur, Harris meets Blake family; Trump steps up
MILWAUKEE — Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris met the family of a Wisconsin man shot by police last month to kick off her Labor Day visit to a critical swing state while President Donald Trump assailed the Democratic ticket and put the halting economic recovery under the best light....
Report: Former Louis DeJoy employees repaid for political donations
The former business of U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for years reimbursed workers who made political contributions to Republican candidates, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing former employees. North Carolina’s attorney general called for an investigation into the company, New Breed Logistics, based in High Point, N.C. DeJoy sold...
Labor Day kicks off an uncommon campaign season for organized labor
Organized labor typically greets the end of the summer and the beginning of campaign season with a roar. But it is trading that for quiet celebrations of service and online education today. Although the 141,000- plus union members in the seven-county region ratcheted back their public celebrations of strength, the...
New Trump ads stoke racial bias among white people in Minnesota and Wisconsin
President Trump resumed television advertising after the Republican National Convention with two racially charged commercials airing in Minnesota and Wisconsin, battleground states racked by social upheaval after recent violent police encounters with Black men. Trump’s ads show how he is trying to replicate his 2016 success in stirring racial resentments...
QAnon conspiracy emerges in some state legislative races
PHOENIX — Candidates engaging with the QAnon conspiracy theory are running for seats in state legislatures this year, breathing more oxygen into a once-obscure conspiracy movement that has grown in prominence since adherents won Republican congressional primaries this year. Some of the legislative candidates have repeatedly shared QAnon memes and...
Frustration grows as covid restrictions remain, political rallies go on
As thousands gathered Thursday night in Latrobe at a rally for President Trump, others across Western Pennsylvania stayed home — working remotely and unable to go to schools, restaurants or sporting events. They were, as they have over the past six months, following Gov. Tom Wolf’s guidance to stop the...
Michael Cohen’s memoir casts him as ‘star witness’ against Trump
NEW YORK — Michael Cohen’s tell-all memoir makes the case that President Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scandal that once overshadowed his presidency. Of all the crises...
Eric Trump coming to Washington, Pa. on Thursday
Eric Trump will visit Washington County on Thursday, Sept. 10 to campaign for his father during a “Make America Great” event. President Trump’s campaign website has announced that Eric Trump will visit the American Legion Post 175 in Washington at 2 p.m. The event’s doors open at 1 p.m. and...
Pence to campaign in Westmoreland and Beaver counties Sept. 9
Vice President Mike Pence will campaign in Western Pennsylvania on Wednesday, as President Trump’s reelection effort continues its focus on swing state voters. Pence is scheduled to appear at events in Murrysville and New Sewickley in Beaver County. The two stops, less than a week after Trump’s rally at the...
Trump targets ‘white privilege’ training as ‘anti-American’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has directed the Office of Management and Budget to crack down on federal agencies’ anti-racism training sessions, calling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.” OMB director Russell Vought, in a letter Friday to executive branch agencies, directed them to identify spending related to any training on “critical...
Western Pa. veterans divided by report Trump disparaged military
Local veterans are divided in their reactions to a report President Trump disparaged fallen service members, with some defending the president’s record and others condemning his attitude toward the military. “If he said that, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if he said it he doesn’t...
