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In March of last year, Andrea Circle Bear was transferred from a South Dakota jail to FMC Carswell, an all-female prison for those with special medical needs in Fort Worth, Texas. Circle Bear, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was serving out a 26-month sentence for conducting a pair of drug deals totaling $850. She was also heavily pregnant. On March 31, Circle Bear began experiencing symptoms of COVID-19dry fever, heavy coughand was placed on a ventilator. The following day, she delivered her baby via C-section. Three days after that, she tested positive for COVID-19. She was dead three weeks later, the first federal prisoner to die of the coronavirus.

Around this time, another inmate at FMC Carswell, Reality Winner, requested compassionate release due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 among the prison population. Due to her history of respiratory illness and bulimia, the virus posed a heavy risk for the 28-year-old. But federal prosecutors blocked Winners request to commute the remaining 19 months of her sentence. Three months later, she contracted COVID-19. Of the 1,625 incarcerated women at FMC Carswell, over 500 came down with the coronavirus, the second most cases of any federal prison. Six of the women died.

She has been under tremendous pressure, says Sonia Kennebeck. She has also been sexually harassed, and a bunch of other things. Its completely inhumane and entirely disproportionate.

Kennebeck, a filmmaker and investigative journalist, has been documenting Winners case for the better part of three years, trailing her family members and friends, filing FOIA requests, and conducting a phone interview with the whistleblower from prison. The result is The United States vs. Reality Winner, a documentary feature making its (virtual) premiere at SXSW.

Reality Winners case is a complicated one, to say the least. She was given her nameand that is her real, government nameby her father after hed observed a woman in Lamaze class with a T-shirt that read I COACHED A REAL WINNER. He wanted her to succeed, and she in turn worshipped him. The Sept. 11 attacks had a profound effect on her father, who instilled in 9-year-old Winner the curiosity to learn what happened, and why. In addition to her academic prowess, Winner had an innate desire to help others, donating to volunteer groups, rescuing cats and dogs, and pushing wheelchair-bound kids in half-marathons as part of Athletes Serving Athletes. She served as an Air Force cryptolinguist from 2010 to 2016, translating communications that would inform drone operators whom they should target. When she was honorably discharged in October 2016, she received a commendation stating she was responsible for removing more than 100 enemies from the battlefield.

One month later, she moved to Augusta, Georgia, in search of work at an NGO. She was a bit disenchanted by her work in the drone program, and felt shed lost sight of the reason she joined the military in the first placeto help others. She taught at a yoga studio and CrossFit gym, and, despite being fluent in Persian, Pashto, and Dari, couldnt seem to find work at a nonprofit due to her lack of a college degree. Then her father passed away. In February 2017, she landed a job at Pluribus International Corporation, an NSA contractor, translating documents related to Irans aerospace program.

But Winner, a Libertarian-minded Texan armed with a bright-pink AR-15, soon became disgusted with President Trump. Following his Muslim ban, she tweeted, the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house. And as the chatter began heating up about possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Winner was puzzled. She had top-secret clearance and had seen with her own two eyes documented evidence that Russia had conducted an elaborate cyberattack on a key U.S. voting software supplier, thereby accessing voter rolls, and sent a series of spear-phishing emails to over 100 election officials just prior to the election. Why was the U.S. government suppressing this information?

On May 9, 2017, the day President Trump fired FBI Director James Comeywho was heading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 electionWinner printed out a document from her computer, folded it up, stuffed it in her pantyhose, and left the building. She then sent a copy of the document via snail mail to The Intercepts New York office. Then, The Interceptthinking the document was perhaps fakedid something highly unusual. As New York Magazine reported:

On May 30, according to court filings, an unnamed reporter sent pictures of the document to a contractor for the U.S. government and told the contractor that theyd been postmarked in Augusta. The contractor initially said that the documents were fake but, after checking with someone at the NSA, reported that they were real.

A journalist sending copies of a leaked U.S. government document back to the U.S. government is almost unheard of.

A journalist sending copies of a leaked U.S. government document back to the U.S. government is almost unheard of. The copies of the document sent by The Intercept reporter eventually made it to the NSA and then the FBI, and the move ended up giving Winner away to the authorities. According to The Guardian:

A visible crease in the document told officials that the Intercept must have received a hard copy in the mail, according to prosecutors Information security analysts also pointed out that the printout handed to the NSA by the Intercept appeared to feature a unique microdot pattern, a security feature intended to allow the documents owner to keep track of precisely when and where it was printed. Investigators reviewed a log of who had printed the file. Six names, including Winners, showed up. A search of Winners computer system also allegedly turned up two emails that she had previously sent to the Intercept from her personal account about a podcast published by the site. Investigators had their target.

On June 3, 2017, 11 mostly armed federal agents descended on Winners home and, without reading her Miranda rights, interrogated her for over an hour in a back room, eventually coaxing a confession out of her.

While a transcript of the FBI interrogation of Winner has leaked, forming the basis for the stage play Is This a Room, the audio of the strange encounter had never seen the light of day. So, Kennebeck filed a FOIA request for the audio two years ago. After the FBI denied the request, she appealed the decision to Trumps Department of Justice, which sided with the filmmaker. And the FBI still didnt release the material, so we sued themmy small production company, with some pro bono help from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says Kennebeck.

She kept on editing The United States vs. Reality Winner and locked the picture in early February, including voiceover work from Stranger Things star Natalia Dyer as Winner. Then, on Feb. 10, she learned that theyd won their suit and would be receiving the audio of the grilling. It was quite dramatic, recalls Kennebeck. When we actually won the court order, it was the same day that the SXSW world premiere was announced, so we had already finished the film and recorded the voiceovers with Natalia Dyer, and we just reopened the entire film.

The audio of the interrogation reveals how the FBI agents engaged Winner in a bizarre, entrapment-y talk (their words), repeatedly insisting that she was there voluntarilyeven though the armed agents had cornered her in a tiny room with no windowand vacillating between jokey and threatening.

All the while, Winner was absolutely terrified. I couldnt hold it anymore, but at the same time I was like, if I take one step out of line theyre gonna think oh, well, lets put her down, she tells Kennebeck during a prison interview in the film. Or if my cat tried to get out or if she got scared, I dont know what I was going to do if something was going to happen to her. So, I was afraid that my reaction would warrant lethal force I was really afraid to even put one foot out of line.

On June 5, two days after she was arrested, The Intercept released their story with the headline, TOP-SECRET NSA REPORT DETAILS RUSSIAN HACKING EFFORT DAYS BEFORE 2016 ELECTION. There were four authors bylined on the piece: Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito, Sam Biddle, and Ryan Grim. Sources tell The Daily Beast that Biddle and Grim were not heavily involved in the reporting process, which fell on the shoulders of Cole and Esposito. In The United States vs. Reality Winner, a pair of fellow whistleblowers raise questions about the conduct of Cole and Esposito, the latter of whom left journalism after the publication of the Winner story to work in the communications department of the NYPD, in essence working for the state after revealing a source to the state. Perhaps even more egregious than the microdots oversight was the decision to supply a government contractor with where the Winner missive came from.

Not only did they give them the content, they gave them the envelope information and where it came from. What the heck? NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake says in the film. The last thing youre going to do is take a disclosure and take the raw version of it and give it to the government for review. Unfortunately, and I have to say this now, it begs some really uncomfortable questions about what was the intent of The Intercept reporters of record? What did they actually share, or what didnt they protect?

Those same two journalists got me arrested, and because of their carelessnesssubterfuge might be a better wordI spent two years in prison.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called the journalist who sent a copy of the document to the federal governmentwho is either Cole or Espositoa menace to sources, and offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the public exposure & termination of the reporter. John Kiriakou, a CIA whistleblower who disclosed information on torture, also points the finger squarely at Cole and Esposito in the film: Those same two journalists got me arrested, and because of their carelessnesssubterfuge might be a better wordI spent two years in prison.

Neither Cole nor Esposito responded to requests for comment; a spokesperson for The Intercept issued a statement to The Daily Beast that read, in part: We have acknowledged our mistakes, and we made changes to our editorial process after a comprehensive internal review. As other journalists have noted, our errors were not singularly responsible for her arrest, but our organization supported her legal defense and we have continued to cover her ordeal while other media outlets moved on.

The Intercept gave Kennebeck access to their newsroom for the documentary, and both editor-in-chief Betsy Reed and national security reporter James Risen are featured. While Kennebeck is thankful for their participation, including what she characterizes as a very tense interview with Reed, as a journalist whos reported on national security and who gives source-protection workshops, shes highly critical of their methods with the Winner story. I would have loved to talk to these journalists personally, she says. I even spoke to a third person who says he was revealed as a source, who worked with one of them. Now, do humans make mistakes? Yes, they do. Should they be in this job if they make them repeatedly?

Reality Winner pleaded not guilty to the charge of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, and was repeatedly denied bail by the judge. During pre-trial hearings, the government tried to smear her as someone who hates America, pointing to a clearly sarcastic Facebook exchange shed made with her sister Brittany about hating America, and a diary entry where she joked about burning down the White House. But Winner did not hate America; on the contrary, she cared deeply about it, having not only served her country but taken active steps to improve it, including meeting with her state senator to discuss the effects of climate change.

They made her sound so devious and evil, Realitys mother, Billie Winner-Davis, says in the film. Thats probably the reason why [her stepfather] and I decided that we had to speak out.

Winner eventually accepted a plea deal of five years and three months behind bars for violating the Espionage Act. Once the sentence was passed down, Kennebeck repeatedly requested to interview Winner; each request was denied.

Though Winners family and friends have made appeals to the Trump and Biden administrations, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Winner is expected to be released on Nov. 23, 2021, though she is still struggling from the aftermath of COVID. To make matters worse, in February, winter storm Uri knocked out power at FMC Carswell, leaving inmatesmany of whom had COVID-19without heat and hot water. Were in a cinder block building with no insulation, an inmate told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. We have to go outside to get our meals, and its snow and icy everywhere and were freezing.

Winner is the eighth whistleblower to be charged under the Espionage Act, which dates back to 1917, and received the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government documents to the press. And the question remains: Who was harmed by Winners disclosure?

Because it was so important to the integrity of our elections, and our whole election system and our democracy, aka what our country built on, you would think somebody who blew the whistle to expose the damage that a foreign adversarial nation did to us, you would think shed be released, Realitys sister Brittany says in the film. Youd think that they would actually probably say thank you for the information she made available for, really, the people who needed to know it.

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How America Betrayed Reality Winner THE DAILY BEAST - The Daily Beast

Police Deliver Stern Warning to 82-Year-Old Grandmother Over Afternoon Tea Party With Neighbour.

Police in the UK delivered a stern warning to an 82-year-old grandmother after she had a socially distanced cup of tea with her neighbours in their communal garden. Officers arrived at the 82-year-olds sheltered housing complex home at 9.45 pm to question her about the incident just after she had settled into bed to watch television.

They told the pensioner she had been reported for drinking tea outside with her neighbours, in breach of coronaviruslockdown restrictions.

Her daughter, Lesley Magovern, 56, expressed her disgust over the action police took and could not believe police travelled from Gloucester to Charlton Kings so late for something so ridiculous.

She added, My son works for the London Met and even he could not believe what I was telling him. We all have been left thinking, what a waste of police resources.

Mrs Magovern who has declined to name her mother to protect her from repercussions said she had had a socially distanced cup of tea with three other residents from her complex in Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, at 1.30 pm on March 9. She added:

My mother heard a knock at the door and it was very late and she wondered really who it could be. My mother is quite deaf and she asked who it was and she thought the voice said Its me. Then mother assumed it was in fact me and she then opened the door.

There were two officers stood there, a man and a woman with masks on and they asked if they could come in and speak to her. They did not show her any identification so she just trusted the uniform and she was quite frightened. My mother has never been in trouble with the police in her life.

When they were there, they told my mother if it were to happen again she would be fined. Then they asked her to provide identification so she was rooting around trying to find some. Finally, she ended up showing them an out-of-date driving licence as that is all she had.

In a statement, a Gloucestershire Police spokesman said: An officer has spoken to the complainant and an explanation was provided in response to concerns raised. She was content with this and the matter has been resolved.

Police received a report of a potential Covid breach on Tuesday 9 March at 1.30 pm suspecting that there was a gathering involving people from multiple households in a residential garden in Charlton Kings, Cheltenham. Covid response officers attended later that day at around 9.45 pm where some residents were spoken to and given words of advice around current restrictions.

Officers are deployed to incidents based on an assessment of the threat, risk and harm of the incident and in this case officers who are part of the Covid response team and are deployed across the county attended later that evening.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this news article Police Deliver Stern Warning to 82-Year-Old Grandmother Over Afternoon Tea Party With Neighbour. For more UK daily news, Spanish daily news and Global news stories, visit the Euro Weekly News home page.

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Police Deliver Stern Warning to 82-Year-Old Grandmother Over Afternoon Tea Party With NeighbourNeighbour - Euro Weekly News

Passed only by a single vote in the Senate, President Joe Bidens $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act may lay the basis for overcoming two deep-seated problems that have bedeviled the Democratic Party for decades.

The first is a half-century curse on Democrats ability to maintain unified control of the federal government. As I wrote in a Washington Post op-ed a year ago:

Since 1968, Democrats have controlled both Congress and the White House three times, and each one of those periods ended with a hard turn right. Altogether, the years of unified Democratic government add up to just eight out of the past 52: four when Jimmy Carter was president, and the first two years of Bill Clintons and Barack Obamas first terms. Carters presidency ended with Ronald Reagans election in 1980, Clintons first years with Newt Gingrichs Republican Revolution in 1994, and Obamas first years with the tea party insurgency in 2010.

Even before the pandemic, it was clear that if Democrats won control of both Congress and the presidency, they needed to prioritize early deliverables to the votersvisible material benefitsto avoid repeating the disastrous reversals in midterm elections the party suffered under Clinton in 1994 and Obama in 2010. The pandemic has made those early deliverables only more urgent, and the big relief bill is providing them. With their narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats will need all the help they can get to retain control.

But short-term measures ought to support a long-term vision, and the relief legislation does that too. Indeed, it advances a second goal that has eluded Democrats for a long time: rebuilding a bottom-up political majority, encompassing both low-income working people and the middle class.

One of the reasons that Clinton and Obama devoted their first two years in office to universal health coverage was its potential for promoting that kind of cross-class support. Universal coverage would help both the uninsured poor and many in the middle class denied protection for pre-existing conditions and facing unaffordable health costs. But although Obama succeeded where Clinton failed, the Affordable Care Act was slow in delivering benefits, and its limitations still prevent it from enjoying the broad cross-class support that Medicare enjoys.

More from Paul Starr

The Biden relief legislation has two key elements, improvements to ACA subsidies and child care tax credits, that extend benefits from the poor into the middle class. Both thereby try to avoid the political weaknesses of programs solely identified with the poor. But both have been enacted on only a temporary basis, and with no votes to spare in the Senate it will be an enormous challenge to make them permanent in a follow-up reconciliation bill before the 2022 election.

Under the ACA, people who enroll for coverage through the insurance marketplaces are eligible for premium subsidies on a sliding-scale basis. Until now, however, the law has cut off subsidies entirely at 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($51,040 for a single person). That cutoff point, or subsidy cliff, may seem reasonable enough, but many people with incomes just above that level face extremely high costs. For example, as Katie Keith points out at Health Affairs, a 60-year-old earning just over the 400 percent cutoff faces an average annual premium of $12,886, or about 25.8 percent of income, not counting out-of-pocket health costs, which may also be substantial. Consequently, many middle-class people dont see the ACA as offering them much financial protection.

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The Biden rescue plan, as Jon Walker has argued, finally attempts to make good on the promise of affordable insurance. For 2021 and 2022, it extends subsidies to people above the cutoff, limiting their premiums to 8.5 percent of income. It also increases subsidies at lower incomes; in fact, people with incomes between 100 and 150 percent of the poverty leveland anyone who received unemployment benefits during 2021will be eligible for a silver plan on the marketplace at no premium.

The expanded child tax credits are potentially even more significant as a cross-class measure than the improved health insurance subsidies. Most of the news coverage about the child tax credits has focused on the stunning point that they will cut child poverty nearly in half. But this may obscure the politically crucial fact that the child tax credits are not an anti-poverty program in the sense of being targeted exclusively, or even primarily, to the poor.

Like the expanded ACA subsidies, the relief plans child tax credits have cross-class benefits. The full credit$3,600 per child under age 6, and $3,000 per child from ages 7 to 17will begin to phase out only at incomes well into the middle class ($112,500 for single heads of household; $150,000 for married couples). Even with incomes up to $400,000, couples with children will get partial credits. Many low-income families who do not receive the existing $2,000-per-child credit because their earnings are too low will also benefit from the legislation because it makes the enlarged credit fully refundable, which means that even those without tax liability will be able to receive the credit.

Not only do the child tax credits have potential cross-class support; they also have potential cross-party support because many conservatives see them as a pro-family policy.

The child tax credits are effectively what other countries call family allowances. Some analyses have suggested that in supporting the tax credits, Democrats are reversing the position they took during the 1990s in seeking to end welfare as we know it. Thats true in one sense: The new benefits are not work-related. But, in another sense, the child tax credits are the fulfillment of the promise to end welfare as we know it. Like family allowances elsewhere, the Biden tax credits dont phase out when low-income parents take paying jobs, so they dont have the kind of work disincentive effect that means-tested welfare assistance has had.

Not only do the child tax credits have potential cross-class support; they also have potential cross-party support because many conservatives see them as a pro-family policyindeed, as a policy that supports more traditional families where the mother stays home with young children. The tax credits thereby avoid some of the ideological divisions that have erupted over public subsidies for child care ever since Richard Nixon vetoed child care legislation in 1971.

Nonetheless, the opposition to making the expanded ACA subsidies and child tax credits permanent will be intense. The opponents will claim that making middle-class people eligible for benefits is costly and unnecessary. They will cite data showing that the programs will be more progressive in the strict sense of directing benefits more to the poor if eligibility ends at low incomes. But by limiting benefits to the poor, the opponents will be inviting a return to all the old political and incentive problems of welfare.

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Can Democrats succeed in turning these temporary policies into a new foundation for social provision in the United States? For the immediate future, the answer will depend on the Democrats precarious majority in the Senate. In a New York Times op-ed the other day, law professor Paul Campos urged Justice Stephen Breyer to retire immediately because the death or incapacitation of a single Democratic senator over the next 22 months could return Mitch McConnell to the position of majority leader, once again able to obstruct a Democratic Supreme Court nominee. Campos pointed out that six Democratic senators over age 70 represent states with Republican governors who could replace them with a Republican; five Democrats represent states where vacancies would go unfilled for months until an election. A single loss in one of these states would also likely end hopes for progressive reform in this Congress, including the extension of the ACA subsidies and child tax credits.

With their tenuous Senate majority, Democrats ought to be in a hurry to do whatever they can on infrastructure, taxes, and other issues. They have already made the most out of the leastthe most substantial relief measure conceivable with the thinnest possible Senate majority. If they can turn that relief measure into a permanent transformation of social policy, it will be one of the most brilliant acts of liberal political magic we have seen in a very long time.

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The Precarious Greatness of the Biden Strategy - The American Prospect

Its Nimrat Kaurs birthday, today. The Lunchbox whos in Agra is happy to be with her family and friends and she shares her plans: Im actually at home with my parents and grandmother. We were shooting in Agra so I came here just the day before yesterday. I thought Id spend two or three days here and then go back to Mumbai. Actually, last year also I was here at the same time. We went to Nizamuddin Dargah as I like to do that the night before my birthday and yesterday evening, too we went there. And today, Im looking forward to have a nice evening celebration with my family, she says.'We'll have a tea party with my nani ji' Whats on the menu, we ask her? Oh, we will have a couple of cakes not just one as we are are making up for the last year, she laughs. The plan to have just going to have a nice evening tea party thing with my nani ji. Shes actually just moved opposite us and she got here only a few days back. Mums going to have a few friends over, so it will be a small family-and-friends do. We'll have just a few easy things on the menu like sandwiches and pizzas and which don't any cooking prep as my mother was helping my nani ji settle in so I wanted her to take it easy today, she adds.

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Nimrat Kaur: Cakes, pizza and sandwiches for my birthday tea party, today - Times of India

Virginias Republicans could find opportunities in this years elections to end a dozen years in the wilderness if not for their own dysfunction.

In Richmond, a Democratic administration is trying to extricate itself from the quicksand of a Parole Board scandal in which inmates serving life terms for murder were freed without proper notice or explanation followed by efforts to keep results of investigations into the boards actions from public view.

A newly Democratic General Assembly swiftly enacted a remarkably progressive agenda by Virginia standards that includes elimination of the death penalty. Too much too soon? The election will tell.

In Washington, Democrats newly (and narrowly) in charge of Congress and a new Democratic president will inevitably wear out their welcome as happens with all regime changes. Only once since 1973 have Virginians elected a governor of the same party as the sitting president.

Those are potentially fortuitous omens for the GOP in Virginia.

But beyond that, things get worrisome for the Republican Party of Virginia.

First, lets rewind.

Late last year, Virginia Republicans decided to pick their nominees for the 2021 election for governor and two other top statewide offices in a closed convention rather than a primary election open to every registered Virginia voter. Historically, the party has favored conventions, which attract only the most motivated (and usually conservative) activists willing to spend the time and money to travel across the state and sit through a day of speeches.

The convention decision didnt set well with state Sen. Amanda Chase. A firebrand Trump disciple from Chesterfield, she preferred a primary where the former presidents supporters might give her a plurality. Thats all she would need to secure the nomination in a primary compared to a party-run convention, where she would have to muster more than 50 percent of the vote.

Some in the party fear that Chase, who called the pro-Trump mob that sacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 patriots, would fare even worse with the states dominant urban/suburban electorate in Novembers general election than her ideological kinsman, Corey Stewart, did in 2018 when Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine won 57 percent of the vote.

Chase, a COVID-19 skeptic and the only senator who refuses to wear a mask during sessions, sued to overturn RPVs convention decision, arguing in court that jamming 10,000 people under one roof would be a coronavirus super-spreader. The judge dismissed her suit.

Shortly after that, RPV scrambled to find a suitable convention venue and approached Liberty University in Lynchburg about using its expansive campus parking lots for a May 8 drive-in state convention. It envisioned thousands of delegates participating remotely from cars idling on Libertys acres of blacktop for hours under a May sun. RPV announced the tailgate convention, and media reported it as a fait accompli. School officials, exerting a measure of independence from the GOP at a post-Falwell Liberty, said in a news release that no such agreement had been reached. RPV chairman Rich Anderson declared the plan dead in a March 5 memo to Virginia Republicans and described the party as fatigued by the process.

This has begun as a rough start for me because of forces that I essentially cant control, and that is confronting this age-old question within the party: convention vs. primary? said Anderson, a retired Air Force colonel and eight-year House of Delegates member who was elected to the post last August.

On Friday night, when the State Central Committee finally approved a May 8 unassembled convention at 37 separate locations across the commonwealth, less than two months remained to winnow a field of nine gubernatorial candidates down to one.

If Rube Goldberg had come up with a convention plan, hed probably fit in on State Central (Committee) right now, said Shaun Kenney, a conservative writer and former RPV executive director. Its the definition of an unearned goal: Youre turning around and kicking the ball into your own net.

Kenney is like many Republicans who dont embrace Trumpism and find themselves estranged from the party they long served. He voices weary dismay watching his party flounder.

Its not going to be a very transparent process and I dont think that at the end of it people are going to be very pleased with the outcome or the method, Kenney said.

Conventions with murky outcomes create divisions. Questions still linger over the final delegate vote count in the 2008 convention in which former Gov. Jim Gilmore barely edged then-Del. Bob Marshall for a U.S. Senate nomination, Kenney said. Hard feelings lingered, and a few months later Democrat Mark Warner won nearly two-thirds of the vote and the seat he still holds.

Last year, Republican social conservatives in the 5th Congressional District denied freshman Rep. Denver Riggleman nomination for a second term in a drive-through convention at a church on the home turf of self-described biblical conservative Bob Good in Campbell County. Good, a former Liberty fundraiser and Campbell County supervisor, won the seat in November.

They did it that way because they knew I couldnt be beaten on an open battlefield, said Riggleman, aretired military intelligence officer with a libertarian streak who in 2019 officiated the same-sex wedding of two campaign staffers.

In 2011, the party decreed that its 2013 gubernatorial slate would be elected in a primary, but that was before the Tea Party consolidated its grip on the SCC in 2012 and scrapped the primary for a convention. That effectively squeezed then-two-term Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling out of any chance at succeeding Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell. Ken Cuccinelli, a social conservative and attorney general, was the nominee, but lost that fall to Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the only time in 44 years the presidents party won Virginias governorship.

What Ive learned is that these decisions always depend on what I call situational politics. Theres never been a great deal of principled consistency in the Republican Party when it comes to making these kinds of decisions, said Bolling, who was on the last GOP ticket to win a statewide election in Virginia in 2009.

This time its all about preventing Amanda Chase from becoming the nominee, which I understand because shed be a disaster, said Bolling, who now teaches politics and government at the University of Richmond and George Mason University. Again, its about situational politics. Its not new, its just with the players in different positions.

Perhaps the bitterest GOP nomination fight was in 2019 between former Del. Chris Peace of Hanover and current Del. Scott Wyatt. In that battle, the SCC was forced to choose between a convention that Wyatt won and a firehouse primary that Peace won. The SCC chose Wyatt over the incumbent Peace, who had supported Medicaid expansion. Wyatt won the seat in a deeply conservative district.

Its guerilla warfare. I dont like to use military metaphors, but I dont know how else youd describe it. It is hand-to-hand, its people hiding behind trees, said Peace, now a lawyer in private practice.

Despite its nomination tumult and conflicts, the GOP could still have a shot in November given a nominee who can compete beyond rural Virginia in the affluent, populous suburbs. A case might be made for wealthy businessmen Glenn Youngkin or Pete Snyder. Former House Speaker Kirk Cox has an appealing bio as a 30-year public school teacher and youth baseball coach, but as Peace learned supporting Medicaid expansion in Virginia is a tough sell within his party.

The GOPs saving grace, Kenney notes, may be timing.

Nobodys watching all this dysfunction right now, he said. Its March. Nobodys paying attention to the Republican Partys internal fights.

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After 12 years in the wilderness, Virginia GOP's miscues could torpedo a 2021 comeback - Virginia Mercury