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To the editor: Yes, most Republicans so far have preferred to shrug off the House committees investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Any findings that conclusively fault former President Trump for facilitating the insurrection would scuttle the GOPs chances in upcoming elections. (Bigger holes keep appearing in the Big Lie, Opinion, Dec. 17)

It wasnt always this way. Some 47 years ago, few Republicans disregarded the gravity of President Nixons abuses of power. After Nixons release of his smoking gun tape recordings, GOP leaders urged him to resign. A few days later, he did.

One big difference with the 1970s explains why integrity seems so lacking among many of todays politicians: That decade was not deluged with politically skewed news outlets and social media sites that enable rampant disinformation and delusional groupthink to influence party leaders.

We can only hope that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows release of text messages sent on Jan. 6 and the weeks before will prove as promotive of justice as the release of Nixons recordings did.

Devra Mindell, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: As we approach the one-year anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, and as the House Jan. 6 committee advances its investigation into the insurrection, one thing is clear the thugs that temporarily prevented Congress from fulfilling its constitutional duty of confirming then-President-elect Bidens victory were not the only subversives who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.

The list is long and includes members of the Republican Party in Congress who encouraged others to participate in the bungled coup.

Should Republicans regain control of Congress in the 2022 midterm election, it may be too late to halt Americas march toward autocracy.

The electorate, shackled by measures in a number of states that make it extremely difficult to sway elections, must be unencumbered to function legitimately. It is time to end the filibuster and enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Our democracy may not survive otherwise.

Jim Paladino, Tampa, Fla.

..

To the editor: Perhaps Time magazine should have named the Big Lie as its person of the year for 2021

Mike Aguilar, Costa Mesa

Link:
What will it take for Republicans to give up on Trump? - Los Angeles Times

The clock on congressional redistricting in New Jersey for 1972 began in 1970 when Gov. William Cahill was trying to clear the field for GOP State Chairman Nelson Gross to run for the United States Senate.

Republicans thought they could beat two-term incumbent Harrison Williams with Gross, who had served as an assemblyman from Bergen County and had close ties to President Richard Nixon. Standing in his way was State Sen. Joseph Maraziti (R-Boonton), a longtime Morris County legislator who wanted to run for the U.S. Senate.

Cahill and legislative leaders offered Maraziti a deal: in exchange for dropping his U.S. Senate bid, he would chair the committee that would redraw New Jerseys fifteen congressional districts for the 1972 election. Maraziti took the deal; Gross lost his race by twelve points.

Jersey style, Maraziti drew a district for himself.

Maraziti eliminated one of the two Hudson County congressional seats, putting Democrats Dominick Daniels (D-Jersey City) and Cornelius Gallagher (D-Bayonne) into a primary fight.

The new 13th district was hugely Republican. It started East Hanover and went through northern Morris County, picked up all of Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties, and ended in northern Mercer. In the 1968 presidential election, the towns in the new 13th had given Richard Nixon a 55%-36% win over Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

Not all Republicans were thrilled with the map. Assembly Speaker Thomas H. Kean (R-Livingston) and State Sen. James H. Wallwork (R-Short Hills), both potential congressional candidates in the future, saw their hometowns put into a district that went through Morris and Somerset counties into Princeton.

The map went to federal court and a three-judge panel upheld it they tinkered with the plan by moving the boundary between two Bergen-based districts so that South Hackensack wasnt split.

The new map put the entire city of Newark into the 10th, a move designed to make the 11th district seat of five-term Rep. Joseph Minish (D-West Orange) more competitive. The candidate the map was draw for was former State Sen. Milton Waldor (R-South Orange), who had lost his Senate seat in 1971 by 908 votes to Essex County Freeholder Wynona M. Lipman. (Lipman, who would later move from Montclair to Newark to survive 1973 legislative redistricting, became the first Black woman to serve in the New Jersey Senate and remained there until her death in 1999.)

Maraziti faced a primary challenge from two assemblymen, Walter Keough-Dwyer (R-Vernon) and Karl Weidel (D-Pennington), and Delmar Miller, Sr., a political newcomer from Ewing who ran under the slogan Speaking for the Silent Majority. Maraziti won big: a 7,491 vote, 50%-25% victory over Keough-Dwyer, with Weidel finishing third with 17% and Miller getting 8%.

Three Morris County candidates sought the Democratic nomination: Joseph P. ODoherty, Jerome Kessler and Norma Herzfeld. ODoherty won the nomination by 1,248 votes over Kessler, 43%-35%, with Herzfeld receiving 22%. (Kessler and Herzfeld both won Democratic legislative primaries in 1977 but lost the general election.)

During the primary, Herzfeld filed a lawsuit challenging ODohertys constitutional eligibility to run for Congress, alleging that the Irish-born Chester resident had not become a U.S. citizen until 1967.

ODoherty dropped out of the race a week after the primary.

Democratic State Chairman Salvatore Bontempo convinced former New Jersey First Lady Helen Meyner to become the replacement candidate. The wife of former Gov. Robert Meyner and the cousin of former Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, Meyner lived in Princeton but had a home in Phillipsburg, where her husband had served as a state senator.

In the general election, Maraziti defeated Meyner by 25,154 votes, 56%43%. Nixon carried the 13th by a 70%-40% margin over Democrat George McGovern.

Under a Republican-drawn map, Democrats won eight of the states 15 House seats, a net pickup of one.

Republicans held the open seat of retiring eight-term Rep. Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth), with State Sen. Matthew Rinaldo (R-Union) defeated former State Sen. Jerry Fitzgerald English by 27 points.

The closest an incumbent came to losing was in the Middlesex-based 15th when newcomer Fuller Brooks held five-term Rep. Edward Patten to a 52%-48% win. Nixon won the district by 22 points.

In a Camden-Gloucester district, three-term Rep. John Hunt (R-Pitman) defeated 35-year-old Assemblyman Jim Florio (D-Runnemede) by a 52.5%-47% margin. Nixon carried the 1st, 60%-40%.

Four much-heralded GOP challengers fell way short: former Nixon White House aide Bill Dowd, making his second bid to unseat four-term Rep. James Howard (D-Spring Lake Heights), received 47% of the vote. Frank Thompson, Jr. (D-Trenton) won his 9th term by a 58%-42% margin against Assemblyman Peter Garibaldi (R-Monroe); Assemblyman Alfred Schiaffo (R-Closter) lost to four-term Rep. Henry Helstoski (D-East Rutherford), 56%-44%; and Minish beat Waldor 18 points. Nixon carried all four of these districts by double-digit margins.

Daniels won the Hudson Democratic primary with 51% against West New York Mayor Anthony DeFino (32%), Gallagher (1%) and former Rep. Vincent Dellay (2%0. He received 61% in the general election.

Republican Map Flips to 12-3 Democratic

Even though Republicans drew the new congressional map, the Watergate scandal resulted in the loss of four seats in the 1974 mid-term elections that came three months after Nixon resigned the presidency.

Florio ousted Hunt by 19 points, 57.5%-38.5% in the 1st district. The GOP has never been able to win that seat back.

In the 2nd district, four-term Rep. Charles Sandman (R-Erma), the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in 1973, lost his seat to former Cape May County First Assistant Prosecutor William J. Hughes by 16 points.

Democrats flipped the Bergen County-based seat of 12-term Rep. William Widnall (R-Ridgewood) by five points. The winner was Democrat Andrew Maguire, who had served in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Local newspapers aimed considerable coverage at Maraziti, whose seat on the House Judiciary Committee put him on national television as Nixons defender. He voted against all three articles of impeachment.

Maraziti also became bogged down in a scandal as he faced a rematch with Meyner.

Meyner had to first win a Democratic primary. She faced ODoherty, who now met the citizenship requirement, former Hunterdon County Prosecutor Oscar Rittenhouse, and Fairleigh Dickinson University Professor Bernard Reiner.

Her 47% -26% win in the Democratic primary was unimpressive. She defeated ODoherty by just 3,801 votes, with Rittenhouse finishing third with 18% and Reiner at 9%. Meyner won everywhere but Hunterdon, where Rittenhouse defeated her, 49%-36%.

Maraziti put his 35-year-old girlfriend, Linda Collinson, on his congressional payroll in a no-show job while she continued to work at Marazitis Morris County law firm.

Collinson was outed after she applied for a loan with the House Credit Union. A staffer in Marazitis Washington office told the credit union that she had never heard of Collinson.

Reporters later discovered that Maraziti owned the house Collinson lived in.

Maraziti was also damaged by reports that a Warren County newspaper fired their managing editor, Donald Thatcher, after learning that he was also on Marazitis congressional payroll. Later, news broke that Nicholas DiRienzo, the general manager of two New Jersey radio stations, was also on the congressmans staff.

Meyner became one of the Watergate Babies, defeating Maraziti by a 57%-43% margin. She carried Mercer with 65%, Warren with 61%, Hunterdon with 58%, Morris with 56%, and Sussex with 51%.

There was one open seat in 1974: Rep. Peter Frelinghuysen (R-Harding) retired after 22 years in Congress. Republican Millicent Fenwick (R-Bernardsville) defeated Kean by 83 votes in the GOP primary a little more of Essex under the Maraziti map would have sent Kean to Congress. She won the general election by a 53%-43% margin against Fred Bohen, a former Johnson White House staffer.

GOP Gains

By the end of a map drawn by the GOP, Republicans had picked up just two of the seats they lost in Watergate, plus two more. In a decade, the map went from 9-6 Democratic to 8-7 Democratic. During the decade, six incumbents lost re-election.

In 1976, Republicans flipped the Bergen-Hudson 9th district seat after six-term incumbent Henry Helstoski became embroiled in a scandal. The winner, by a 53%-44% margin, was former State Sen. Harold Hollenbeck (R-East Rutherford).

Meyner held the 13th seat by 5,241 votes, 50%-48%, in 1976 against former State Sen. William Schluter (R-Pennington). President Gerald Ford had carried the district that year by a 50%-41% margin against Democrat Jimmy Carter.

But 1978, Carters mid-term election, Meyner lost.

After his close call, Schluter sought a rematch against Meyner in 1978. This time, Schluter faced a strong primary opponent, Assistant Warren County Prosecutor Jim Courter. Courter beat Schluter by just 134 votes in a campaign managed by Roger Bodman, who would go on to run Keans campaign for governor and later serve in his cabinet. Courter unseated Meyner that year by a 52%-48% margin.

Ford had also carried the 7th, 58%-42%, but Maguire defeated Republican James Sheehan, a Wyckoff township committeeman, by 13 points to secure a second term.

The Republican challenger against Maguire in 1978 was Marge Roukema, a former Ridgewood school board member.

Roukema won the primary, 39%-32%, against a well-known name in the Republican primary: Joseph Woodcock (R-Cliffside Park), who served 12 years as an assemblyman and state senator, four years as the Bergen County prosecutor, and was briefly a candidate for the 1977 Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Maguire won by six points but lost a 1980 rematch to Roukema

The Republicans also picked up the 4th district. Thompson, a 26-year incumbent and the chairman of the House Administration Committee, was implicated in the FBI sting operation known as Abscam, when an undercover agent pretending to be an Arab sheik offered the congressman a cash bribe to help him circumvent federal immigration laws.

Republican Christopher Smith was the 25-year-old executive director of New Jersey Right to Life when he challenged Thompson in 1978. He lost by 24 points.

But with Thompson under indictment, Smith beat Thompson by 26,967 votes, a 47%-41% margin. Hes held the seat for the last 41 years.

Hughes held the 2nd district seat in 1976 against the strongest possible Republican challenger, Assemblyman James Hurley (R-Millville). He won 62%-38% in a district where Carter beat Ford by two points.

In the 15th district, Republicans nearly unseated Patten.

details began emerging about Pattens involvement in the Koreagate scandal. Lobbyist Tongsun Park was charged with using funds provided by the government of South Korea to bribe six congressmen as part of a bid to ensure that the United States kept their military presence there.

The allegation against Patten was that he solicited an illegal campaign contribution from Park, including funds that found their way into the account of the Middlesex County Democrats. Patten allegedly took cash contributions from Park and then wrote personal checks to the county organization.

A 30-year-old Edison attorney, George Spadoro, challenged Patten in the Democratic primary and held him to 59% of the vote, a 6,323-vote plurality. (Spadoro would later become the mayor of Edison and an assemblyman.)

Summer headlines on Koreagate dominated the summer news, as well as Pattens testimony before the House Ethics Committee. Patten steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. In October, the Ethics panel voted unanimously to clear him of the charges. And the Friday before the election, state Attorney General John Degnan announced that he had cleared Patten of any wrongdoing in Koreagate, which had become a state issue since some of the contributions had come to the county party organization.

Patten also faced allegations that he failed to disclose his assets as required by House rules. Patten had filed a financial disclosure saying that he had no personal assets; he eventually announced that all his assets were in his wifes name.

The scandal took its toll on Patten. He won re-election, but just narrowly 48%46%, with a plurality of only 2,836 votes, against Republican Charles Wiley, a conservative radio commentator from Sayreville.

New Jersey lost one congressional seat after the 1980 census.

Excerpt from:
The time NJ Republicans won the congressional map but lost the election - New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics

To drive that message home, theyre arguing that Abrams last campaign speech, a critique of Georgias election system in 2018, is no different from former President Donald Trumps refusal to accept the 2020 election results in the state.

Democrats attack Trump and Republicans for believing these conspiracies, believing what they call the Big Lie. But the original Big Lie proponent was Stacey Abrams, said Brian Robinson, a Georgia-based Republican strategist. She was ahead of her time, as she is on so many things.

How well their message takes hold is likely to shape a major theme of Georgias gubernatorial election in 2022, when election integrity and voting rights will remain major issues.

And it will be a potent political test for Abrams, an influential figure in the Democratic Party who made history as the first female Black nominee from a major party to run for governor and who is eager for a rematch against Republican Brian Kemp.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during a news conference at Lockheed Martin on Aug. 26 in Marietta, Ga. | Brynn Anderson, File/AP Photo

So far, Abrams is not backing down from the nuanced position she staked out at the end of a contentious campaign against Kemp, who was then secretary of state.

Abrams did not recognize him as the victor until more than a week after Election Day, as her campaign maintained they would wait for all of the votes to be counted before weighing in. Though she lost by some 55,000 votes, Kemp finished with 50.2 percent of the vote fewer than 10,000 votes above the majority runoff threshold that couldve forced a second election.

In her final speech 10 days later and at speaking engagements over the following months, Abrams maintained that she was not conceding the race.

Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede, Abrams said to supporters in 2018. But my assessment is that the law currently allows no further viable remedy.

She was indicting the system that got Kemp elected alleging that voter suppression tactics paved the way for his win and was also implicating Kemp, as he was then officially in charge the states elections.

In an interview with CNN earlier this month, she reupped her view that the election was rigged echoing language often invoked by Trump.

Abrams said Kemp won under the rules of the game at the time, but the game was rigged against the voters of Georgia.

I, on November 16, 2018, acknowledged at the top of my speech that Brian Kemp is the governor of Georgia and I even wished him well at the end of the speech, Abrams said. And in the middle, I talked about the fact we had a system that he managed, that he manipulated, hurt Georgia voters and the responsibility of leaders is to challenge systems that are not serving the people.

According to a lawsuit filed by Fair Fight Action, a group Abrams founded after the 2018 election, the election was marred by a range of issues. The suit which is due to go to trial in February cites among other items Georgias exact-match law, claiming that it disproportionately targeted first-time minority voters. In addition, it alleges that elections officials were not properly trained to cancel absentee ballots, barring access to the ballot for scores of voters who opted to vote in person.

While Abrams claims are not nearly as confrontational as Trumps, they have given the GOP an opportunity to use her words to undercut her reputation as a champion of free and fair elections.

David Perdue, the former senator now running against Kemp in the GOP gubernatorial primary, said his decision to do so was driven in large part by Abrams entry to the race and his belief that Kemp would not be a strong enough candidate to defeat her.

David Perdue speaks during a rally in Augusta, Ga., on Dec. 10, 2020. | John Bazemore, File/AP Photo

In his election launch video, Perdue presented Abrams as a threat to the states elections, saying over my dead body will we ever give Stacey Abrams control of them. Around the same time, the Republican Governors Association issued a press release highlighting Abrams 2018 speech, saying she is a candidate who cannot be trusted.

And in March, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote that Abrams refusal to concede the 2018 election undermined voters faith in the system. At public gatherings, he has alleged that both she and the former president are spreading misinformation about their races through Trumps allegations of election fraud and Abrams of voter suppression.

Yet while both Trump and Abrams refused to concede their elections, the similarities between the two stop there.

Trump not only refused to concede the presidential election but made false claims about its results, alleging that missing or fraudulent votes contributed to his loss.

The statements were unsubstantiated: Neither Georgias Bureau of Investigation nor the FBI found evidence of fraud during the 2020 election. Multiple ballot recounts found Joe Biden as the election winner in the state. And since then, state courts have dismissed the multiple lawsuits filed by the former president, his allies and supporters seeking to reverse the results of the election.

Seth Bringman, a spokesperson for Abrams, underscored her stance on the race.

After Election Day in 2018, the Abrams campaign went to federal court, multiple judges agreed with our claims and more Georgians' votes were counted, said Bringman. She acknowledged the result of the election but refused to accept that it was fair to the voters and she worked to change Georgia's voting system for elections moving forward.

However, that lawsuit was pared down by a judge in April, shortly after Kemp signed legislation that imposed new state restrictions on voting by mail and gave the GOP-controlled legislature more control over elections.

As the fight over Georgias election system rages on, Republicans are reveling in the idea of being able to use Abrams own words against her.

We've seen so many TV ads, so many digital ads, where candidates are stretching the truth. And I think the electorate realizes that. They know that not everything they see or hear now is fact checked or is valid, said Ryan Mahoney, a senior adviser to Brian Kemps 2018 election. And so when it's Stacey Abrams in her own words, it's a lot more believable, it goes a lot further and it's a lot harder for Abrams and her camp to dispute. And thankfully, for Republicans in Georgia, Stacey Abrams has spent a lot of time on TV since losing [the 2018] race.

Democrats have been quick to call out the GOPs tactics, saying that while election integrity may be front of mind for both Democratic and Republican voters, pushing the belief that Abrams is on an even level with Trump will not get the GOP far in the messaging wars.

I think this will land, probably, with [Republican] voters. But obviously, it's not going to work with the Democratic base, said Nabilah Islam, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist and former congressional candidate. For them to try to equate it to what Trump said is absolutely egregious.

And in her first interview after declaring her candidacy earlier this month, Abrams clarified her position on the 2018 election.

On the 16th of November when I acknowledged that I would not become the governor, that [Kemp] had won the election, I did not challenge the results of the election, unlike some recent folks did, Abrams told Rachel Maddow the night she launched her campaign. What I said was that the system was not fair. And leaders challenge systems; leaders say, We can do better. And thats what I declared.

Originally posted here:
Republicans are trying to pin the Big Lie on Stacey Abrams - POLITICO

August 15,2021 | Hujjatullah Zia | Opinion

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Original post:
Home - Daily Outlook Afghanistan, The leading Independent ...

After Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, Halima received an email from the American University of Afghanistan that she would be on a flight out the next day. She took a small backpack with two sets of clothes, and left behind her family and the first 19 years of her life. The next day, she arrived at the American University of IraqSolemani.

She was at first worried about her safety in what she regarded as another war-torn country, but she eventually settled in and felt secure at her new campus.

Her course schedule is a mix of in-person classes with fellow students from the university in Iraq and online courses with Afghan students from around the world.

Scattered throughout the world, the students from the American University of Afghanistan are logging on across time zones to continue their education. Over half of the students have now been evacuated from Afghanistan and are mainly in Iraq, Kyrgyzstan and the U.S., with others in countries like Germany, France, Chile and Rwanda.

CBS News spoke to seven current students and is not using their real names out of security concerns for the students and their families.

The American University of Afghanistan was established in 2006 as the nation's first private college with a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. It was founded with 50 students and grew to over 1,000, with the aim of establishing a form of higher education built on the American model. The physical campus closed soon after the Taliban took control this summer.

Over 2,000 miles to the east of Iraq, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Fazal, a business student, joins his class from his new apartment near the American University of Central Asia. He's learning some Russian, the local language spoken, to get by in his new environment.

"I needed to leave my family, my father and mother, because I didn't want to be a threat to them by being affiliated with a U.S. institution," he said.

Concentrating on his studies has been difficult, with his mind wandering back to his homeland and family, but he remains motivated to graduate. "It has been a struggle to get back to the same focus, the attention span that I previously had," he said. "But I kind of keep trying and putting in effort to get back to being normal."

"They were impressive people even in relatively normal times, but what they're demonstrating now with their resilience and their ambitions and their desire to learn surpasses anything I've ever seen from students anywhere in the world," said Ian Bickford, president of the university.

Keeping the classes going hasn't been easy. Schedules still run on Kabul time to standardize when students around the world meet. That has students and professors signing on at various hours of the night and day.

The professors preview all the material at the beginning of the week, with online class sessions acting as a supplement. This format aims to help students who may not be able to attend every class.

"We thought that was a really important signal to send to our community that we are still there and we can still teach," said Dr. Victoria Fontan, vice president of academic affairs at the university and a professor of peace and conflict studies.

The students remaining in Afghanistan face unique challenges. With electricity and internet no longer reliable, it has been difficult for Norie to attend class. She has not told her family that she is continuing her studies with the university online. She fears them finding out, accidentally mentioning her continuing education and the repercussions that could follow.

But beyond the anxiety is the loneliness that plagues her current life as a woman in Afghanistan. "I can't go alone to meet with my friends. I can't go shopping alone. I can't go do sports. I used to run with my father in the morning and I can't anymore."

In a refugee facility in France, Hassan, a student who made it out of Afghanistan on his own, said he never thought he would leave his country and worries about his future.

"When I came to France, I lost my hope. I was like, I'm nothing right now. I was studying, and here I have nothing. I don't even have a bachelor's degree." From his room at the facility, he continues with his classes online in hopes that he will be relocated to a university. While still a student in Kabul, he was working on developing a software that would make it easier for students to take classes from their phone. He worries that his family is in danger and that there is nothing he can do to help them.

Even as the students are spread across 28 countries, some still hope to see their futures in Afghanistan. Pashtana Dorani was evacuated to the U.S. in late October on a researcher visa. She is at Wellesley College in Massachusetts researching the impact of conflict on women's education while finishing her undergraduate degree.

In Afghanistan, she founded LEARN, a nonprofit focused on education, organizing projects around digital literacy and menstrual hygiene management. While grateful for the opportunity to be in the U.S., she maintains that she wants to take the skills she learns back to her home country when it feels safe.

"Staying in the U.S. is good, I'm grateful for the support I have right now, and I'm so grateful for all these amazing women around me," she said. "But at the end of the day, the heart is where home is. And home is Afghanistan."

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American University of Afghanistan's students are scattered all over the world, but their education continues - CBS News