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LOS ANGELES State Sen. Dave Min, who withstood millions of dollars of attack ads in a bitter battle for Rep. Katie Porters Orange County House seat, will advance to the November general election after his Democratic opponent, Joanna Weiss, conceded Wednesday night.

Hell face off with Republican Scott Baugh, a longtime GOP official in the area who came close to beating Porter in the swing district two years ago.

Min said he was "deeply humbled and grateful for the support from voters" in his victory over Weiss, a political activist and first-time candidate.

"This victory is not just about winning an election, it is about the future we are collectively shaping. It's about reclaiming the House for Democrats and Orange County families. Its about rejecting the divisive, Trump-supporting MAGA politics that our opponent, Scott Baugh, represents," Min said in a statement.

Weiss, on social media, said she called Min "and pledged to do all I can to keep [California's 47th district] blue."

The two candidates offered competing visions on the path to victory in Orange County, the one-time conservative bastion that now teeters between red and blue. Min argued that as a Korean American candidate he was best positioned to appeal to Asian American voters, who make up 20 percent of the district, while Weiss said she would better mobilize suburban women who have been key to Democratic victories since the Trump presidency.

But the campaign largely turned on acrimonious personal attacks and a deluge of outside money. Weiss hammered Min on his drunk driving arrest last spring. Coming to her aid was EMILYs List, a group that backs women candidates who support abortion rights, as well as the American Israel Political Affairs Committee. The pro-Israel groups super PAC spent at least $4.7 million against Min for reasons that remain somewhat inscrutable, since Min was not a vocal critic of Israel in public.

Danni Wang, a spokesperson for EMILYs List, said the organization was "so proud of the race Joanna Weiss ran."

"Day in, day out, Joanna stressed the urgency of electing Democratic, pro-choice women to office at a time when Republicans are threatening all our freedoms. We join her in our shared commitment to flipping the House this November," Wang said.

Min, for his part, got outside help from SEIU California, a major labor power player, and won the endorsement of the state Democratic party. He was also backed by Porter, who beat him in a hard-fought primary in 2018.

The general election matchup between Min and Baugh is poised to be one of the marquee races in the country. It is one of the few contests in California where Democrats will be playing defense in a toss-up seat.

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Dave Min will be Democrat battling to hold Katie Porter's seat - Yahoo! Voices

The perspective, the lens, the representation, the experience of a Black woman from California is badly needed.

Thats what Representative Barbara Lee a California Democrat vying for the Senate seat held for three decades by Dianne Feinstein told a television reporter last month about why people should vote for her in the race.

On Sunday, before a rally that evening outside a production studio in Los Angeles owned by the former N.B.A. all-star Baron Davis, I asked Lee what she meant by that, since Black people are only about 7 percent of the population of the state.

She replied in a way that was both shrewd and true to her career in politics: Ive taken everything I know about what it means to be Black in America or brown in America or low-income in America or a woman in America and tried to turn it into policies.

On paper, Lee strikes me as the perfect candidate. She has a decades-long record of standing up for progressive policies, she is a woman of color at a time when women of color are central to the success of the Democratic Party and she is a capable politician who has never lost an election.

But polls show her in fourth place going into Tuesdays primary. Under Californias open primary rules, the top two finishers will advance to the general election, regardless of party.

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Opinion | Why California Democrats Arent Voting for Rep. Barbara Lee - The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- Former President Donald Trump will spend Saturday's third anniversary of the Capitol riot by holding two campaign rallies in leadoff-voting Iowa in his bid to win back the White House.

To mark the moment, President Joe Biden plans to visit a site near Valley Forge, Pa., today where George Washington and the struggling Continental Army endured a tough winter during the American Revolution. Biden's advisers say the stop in a critical swing state will highlight Trump's role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and give the Democrat a chance to lay out the stakes of this year's election. Weather concerns led Biden to move up his appearance from Saturday.

With Biden and Trump now headed toward a potential 2020 rematch, both are talking about the same event in very different ways and offering framing they believe gives them an advantage. The dueling narratives reflect how an attack that disrupted the certification of the election is increasingly viewed differently along partisan lines -- and how Trump has bet that the riot won't hurt his candidacy.

Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden's victory, and they forced lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to flee for their lives. Many Trump loyalists walked to the Capitol after a rally outside the White House in which the Republican president exhorted the crowd to "fight like hell" or "you're not going to have a country anymore."

Prosecutors have called the riot inquiry the largest in the history of the Justice Department, and there is no doubt it is vast by any measure.

While some of the cases have attracted nationwide attention, particularly those involving far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia, most of the prosecutions have flown beneath the radar, unfolding in quiet hearings often attended only by the defendants and their families. These proceedings have helped to flesh out the story of how an angry crowd of Trump's supporters stopped the democratic process, if only for several hours.

Nine deaths were linked to the attack. The bulk of the riot cases, more than 710, were resolved without trial through guilty pleas. As of the Justice Department's latest update in December, about 170 people have gone to trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, in front of either a jury or just a judge, with a vast majority resulting in convictions.

As for punishment, more than 450 people have been sent to jail or prison, with the longest term so far being the 22-year sentence imposed on Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys. Several people who were not associated with extremist groups but who assaulted the police in what officers have described as a "medieval" battle outside the Capitol have been sentenced to a decade or more behind bars.

Federal prosecutors in Washington have charged Trump in connection with the riot, citing his promotion of theories of election fraud and efforts to overturn the results. Trump has pleaded innocent.

Judges in multiple states dismissed state and federal lawsuits filed by Trump's legal team that alleged widespread voting improprieties in the 2020 election while federal and state election security experts found no credible evidence of computer fraud in the election. In early December 2020, former Attorney General William Barr said that the Justice Department did not uncover any evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Trump has built a commanding lead in the Republican primary, and his rivals largely refrain from criticizing him about Jan. 6. He has called it "a beautiful day" and described those imprisoned for the insurrection as "great, great patriots" and "hostages." At some campaign rallies, he has played a recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner" sung by jailed rioters -- the anthem interspersed with his recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Republican strategist Alice Stewart said that "a lot of Republican voters don't love Jan. 6, but they're not obsessed about it either" and may support Trump because they oppose Biden's economic policies.

"Republican voters can hold two consecutive thoughts and say, 'Jan. 6, that wasn't great, but that doesn't affect my bottom line,'" she said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination, called Jan. 6 a "protest" that "ended up devolving," and has more recently said Trump "should have come out more forcefully" against the rioters. Another candidate, Trump's former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, frequently tells crowds that Jan. 6 "was not a beautiful day, it was a terrible day."

But views overall of the attack have hardened along partisan lines.

In the days after the riot, 52% of U.S. adults said Trump bore a lot of responsibility for Jan. 6, according to the Pew Research Center. By early 2022, that had declined to 43%. The number of Americans who said Trump bore no responsibility also increased to 32% in 2022 compared with 24% in 2021.

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released this week found that about 7 in 10 Republicans say too much is being made of the riot. Just 18% of GOP supporters say that protesters who entered the Capitol were "mostly violent," down from 26% in 2021, while 77% of Democrats and 54% of independents say the protesters were mostly violent -- essentially unchanged from 2021.

A December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, meanwhile, found that 87% of Democrats and 54% of independents believe a second Trump term would negatively affect U.S. democracy. Some 82% of Republicans believe democracy would be weakened by another Biden win, with 56% of independents agreeing.

Biden's campaign also announced an advertising push starting Saturday with a spot centering on the Capitol riot.

In the ad, Biden says, "There's something dangerous happening in America."

"There's an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy," Biden says as images from the riot appear. "All of us are being asked right now, what will we do to maintain our democracy."

His campaign is spending $500,000 to run the 60-second ad on national television news and on local evening news in TV markets in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as shorter versions on digital platforms.

It's a theme Biden has returned to repeatedly.

He marked the first anniversary of the riot in 2022 by standing inside the Capitol's National Statuary Hall -- which was flooded by pro-Trump rioters during the attack -- to suggest that his predecessor and his supporters had had "a dagger at the throat of America."

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the president repeatedly characterized Trump as a threat to democracy. That included a speech at Philadelphia's Constitution Hall, where he said that the "extreme ideology" of Trump and his supporters "threatens the very foundation of our republic."

On the second anniversary of the attack in 2023, Biden awarded presidential medals to 14 people for their work protecting the Capitol during the riot and decried "a violent mob of insurrectionists." More recently, he said there was "no question" Trump supported an insurrection.

"Not even during the Civil War did insurrectionists breach our Capitol," said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, manager of Biden's reelection campaign, in a call with reporters this week. "But, at the urging of Donald Trump, insurrectionists on January 6, 2021, did."

Trump now counters that the federal charges he's facing related to Jan. 6 -- as well as authorities in Maine and Colorado trying to keep him off primary ballots on grounds that he incited an insurrection -- show that Democrats are the ones looking to undercut the nation's core values.

"Joe Biden and his allies are a real and compelling threat to our democracy," Trump senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a memo this week.

Aside from the back and forth of politics, such arguments over who endangers America more could indicate a deeper problem.

"When each side starts talking about the other as a threat to democracy -- whatever the reality is -- that's a sign of a democracy that's deconsolidating," said Daniel Ziblatt, a government professor at Harvard University and co-author of the book "How Democracies Die."

Information for this article was contributed by Will Weissert and Linley Sanders of The Associated Press and Alan Feuer and Molly Cook Escobar of The New York Times.

Continued here:
Jan. 6 anniversary points up division | Arkansas Democrat Gazette - Arkansas Online

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A mayor of a small, unassuming town on the outskirts of Chicago where the median income is $24K per year, has been living the life of a royal as she is deemed by critics to exhibit antics that are both corrupt (meaning, what they consider an overuse of her power) and hilarious to the point where she belongs on a comedy show like "Parks and Recreation."

Tiffany Henyard, a progressive Democrat, was elected as the Mayor of Dolton, Illinois, in the April 2021 municipal elections. She is also the supervisor of Thorton Township. For those positions, she brings home more than the state's governor nearly $300k. She calls herself a "Super Mayor" and frequently posts messages that suggest that "God chose me."

In one of the greatest examples derided by critics, Henyard put an ordinance in place that if she lost her election to be mayor in the upcoming elections, the future mayor's salary would be reduced from over $200K to $25,000. But if Henyard wins, the salary would remain the same, Fox 32 found.

The move was seen by critics as a way of scaring away her competition.

'MASSIVE WEIGHT LOSS PATIENT' DESCRIBES HORROR OF PLASTIC SURGERY RESULTS, SAYS IT LOOKED LIKE A 'HOT DOG'

Democrat Tiffany Henyard is considered one of the funniest politicians for her antics in a small town outside Chicago.

Henyard has met criticism from her trustees on how she spends the town's money who have demanded receipts for the charges on the town's card and they have accused her of running up the tab for expenses without approval.

"Not only are the residents in the dark, but the trustees are in the dark," said Trustee Tammy Brown. In response to criticism such as this, Henyard posted a picture of her trustees and called them "haters."

"When your haters try to block blessings but G-d has his hands on you," Henyard wrote on TikTok. (Screenshot/TikTok | Tiffany Henyard)

One of the biggest criticisms came from expenses charged to the town regarding a trip to Las Vegas that was supposedly for a conference. The airfare for the trip alone cost thousands of dollars, including over $3,000 for one roundtrip ticket.

In a viral clip from WGN that some dubbed "the single greatest interview of the year," Henyard was put on the spot about credit card expenses. Her responses shocked some critics who believed it was too funny to be real.

Henyard responded by humming "mmmm" when asked whether she had been to Las Vegas by a local reporter.

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"What is that? Did you fly first class to Las Vegas?" asked Ben Bradley, an investigative reporter at WGN9 regarding the $3,000+ flight.

"Any other questions?" Henyard said.

Ben Bradley askked Tiffany Henyard about an alleged trip to Las Vegas. (WGN9)

"So you're not going to answer how taxpayer dollars are being spent, that seems odd," the reporter responded.

"I just answered your questions," Henyard said.

"You said that you wouldn't answer a question about Las Vegas," the reporter said.

"You asked me a question and I responded," Henyard said.

Bradley had some follow-up questions about the nearly $400 spent at "Hot N' Juicy Crawfish" in Las Vegas and other dinners near the Las Vegas Strip that cost hundreds of dollars each.

To date, the mayor has produced two music videos that feature city workers, such as police dancing or boosting her image by being in the background as she lip-syncs the songs.

Tiffany Henyard gets her hair and makeup professionally done. (stylemebrandon | Instagram/screenshot)

The small-town mayor's Instagram reflects that she frequently uses a professional stylist to help her with her wardrobe before making public appearances at a community event or town meeting with her trustees.

Dolton has a little bit more than 20,000 residents in the town.

She also has a makeup artist and hairdresser whom she uses before public appearances and photoshoots that are used for the county's billboards (more on that later). It is unclear how and if those vendors are compensated for their services and how much it would cost to fund dozens of outfit selections and professional styling. When Fox News asked how the services were paid for, the mayor did not immediately respond.

Tiffany Henyard (right) is styled by her fashion consultant, (middle) Henyard with her hair stylist, (left) Tiffany Henyard in an outfit chosen by her stylist. (stylemebrandon | Instagram/screenshot)

In addition, the Democrat "supermayor" of the town of a handful of residents has been criticized for spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on security.

Henyard can be seen arriving at town events for seniors or for a Christmas celebration like a celebrity as police officers and security take her hand and escort her in and out of the backseat of a black SUV.

RAPPER SAYS HE 'WISHES' TRUMP WERE STILL PRESIDENT, 'BIDEN GOT TO GO' BECAUSE OF HIGH GAS AND FOOD PRICES

Fox 32 reported that when one of their reporters tried to ask the mayor how she spends taxpayer dollars, she was removed by security.

"Dane Placko asked Henyard a few months ago about her use of tax dollars, she was quickly hustled out of the room by armed security," the outlet said.

Her use of security mystified some of her trustees who couldn't fathom why it was necessary.

"Why? Why would you need a security detail?" Trustee Tammy Brown said.

Tiffany Henyard films a music video with police officers in Illinois. (Tiffany Henyard) (Tiffany Henyard)

A year after her election, she faced a recall effort in which a majority of the votes wanted her cast out. The recall effort failed when a court invalidated the results.

One of the reasons the recall effort was initiated was because Henyard hired a convicted sex offender as a code enforcement officer "a job in which he goes into Dolton homes and businesses to inspect them and make sure they are up to code," according to a Fox 32 report.

"Oh my god. Don't they supposed to do background checks before they allow these people to in these kind of positions?" a resident said.

In response to the failed recall effort, Henyard showed up to the next board meeting blasting a disco song and began dancing on the podium.

"How y'all doin'?" she said, blaring into the microphone during an Oct. 3, 2022, meeting.

Tiffany Henyard outfits professionally styled by a fashion expert. (stylemebrandon | Instagram/screenshot0

"Ain't no stoppin' us now," she sang. "We on the move! Ain't no stoppin' us now! We on the move."

It was one example of the many antics that raised eyebrows.

Jack Mac from Barstool Sports said he believed Henyard was "the funniest most corrupt politician in the United States in America" for antics he believed were an overuse of power. He also said that he believed Henyard was a real-life comedy skit, and there was a "real life Parks & Rec situation going on" in the town.

In addition, Fox 32 found that taxpayers were responsible for billboard images of Henyard with language included that broadcast city services.

The local Fox 32 reported, "One says Fresh Produce, another Senior Services, and another simply says We Offer General Assistance. There's a phone number, but you wouldn't know what it's for unless you can read the tiny letters."

The "Thornton Township paid more than $10,000 for the vinyl signs themselves and more than $12,000 to Clear Channel Outdoor Advertising for one month's rental of the billboards," Fox 32 reported.

Henyard's signs were accused of using taxpayer dollars for self-promotion.

An Illinois election attorney with 50 years of experience, Burt Odelson, told Fox 32, "When I first looked at it, I thought what's she running for now? Because that's what it shouts out."

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"This is a blatant attempt to promote herself politically," Odelson said. "The township should not have paid for these if they did. And I'm sure they did."

"Well, first of all, I didn't know anything about them," said Thornton Township Trustee Chris Gonzalez.

Henyard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Democratic mayor accused of antics so wild she deserves her own TV show: 'Real life Parks & Rec situation' - Fox News

NEW YORK -- A new batch of unsealed documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of teenage girls was released Thursday, adding several hundred pages to the fountain of information detailing how the financier leveraged connections to the rich, powerful and famous to recruit his victims and cover up his crimes.

The 19 documents, or about 300 pages, were half as many as the over 40 documents released Wednesday. The documents so far -- with more to come -- were sprinkled with names of celebrities and politicians who socialized with Epstein or worked with him in the years before he was publicly accused nearly two decades ago of paying underage girls for sex.

Most of those names were familiar to anyone who has followed the scandal closely, including the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Epstein's former girlfriend, household manager and chief recruiter of young, vulnerable girls and women.

It was during Maxwell's criminal trial two years ago that Epstein's victims, some of whom aspired to be models or artists, described how he dropped the names of his famous and influential friends to suggest that he was the victims' ticket to reaching their dreams. Maxwell, 62, was convicted of sex-trafficking charges and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The roughly 250 documents being unsealed, starting this week, in one of the lawsuits against Maxwell mostly rehash what has long been known about a man who traveled in elite circles until his July 2019 sex-trafficking arrest left him so cornered that he took his own life in jail.

But they have included a few fresh details about a pyramid of abuse that grew over three decades and harmed dozens of teenage girls and young women.

Among the famous people in Epstein's orbit before he was exposed as a sexual predator were former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, singer Michael Jackson and magician David Copperfield, according to the accounts of his victims and other witnesses quoted in newly released documents. None of those men were accused of wrongdoing.

There were also repetitions of well-known stories about Britain's Prince Andrew. He was sued by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, who said she had sexual encounters with the royal when she was 17. The prince, who denied the allegations, settled the lawsuit in 2022.

Epstein's death came one day after earlier redacted documents from the Giuffre-Maxwell lawsuit were released. Giuffre alleged in those documents she was coerced into having sex with some of the world's most powerful and wealthy men, including former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Thomas Pritzker, executive director of the Hyatt Hotels Corp. -- all of whom denied the claims.

Though none of the records released Wednesday directly implicate anyone beyond Epstein and Maxwell in illegal or improper activities, witnesses -- mostly young women -- testified that Epstein bragged about his sexual prowess with virgins and boasted of his long list of famous acquaintances.

The court documents being released now are related to a 2015 lawsuit that Giuffre brought against Maxwell. Thousands of pages of documents in that lawsuit had been made public previously, but some sections had been blacked out because of privacy concerns.

The Miami Herald first sued to have the records released in 2018 and the court has released several tranches of documents since then that have painted a detailed portrait of Epstein's abuse of hundreds of girls and Maxwell's role in facilitating that abuse. But many of the names in the records were redacted. The Herald pushed to have those redactions lifted.

U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered last month that those redactions be lifted, mostly because names in the documents had already been made public through news coverage or through other court proceedings.

Among the more interesting documents released Wednesday was the May 2016 deposition of Johanna Sjoberg, who worked as a masseuse in Epstein's household. Sjoberg said she once met Michael Jackson at Epstein's Palm Beach, Fla., home, but that nothing untoward happened with the late pop icon. Epstein also had homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands.

She also described an April 2001 trip to New York in which she said Prince Andrew touched her breast while they posed for a photo at Epstein's Manhattan town house.

Clinton previously said through a spokesperson that although he traveled on Epstein's jet several times, he never visited his homes, had no knowledge of his crimes, and hadn't spoken to him since his conviction. Trump has also said he once thought Epstein was a "terrific guy," but that they later had a falling-out.

Sjoberg also testified that she once went to a dinner at one of Epstein's homes that was also attended by Copperfield.

She said Copperfield did magic tricks before asking if she was aware "that girls were getting paid to find other girls." One allegation against Epstein and Maxwell was that some girls he paid for sexual acts later recruited other victims. Sjoberg said Copperfield didn't get more specific about what he meant. A Copperfield publicist didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

Sjoberg, who worked for Epstein for five years, said she once overheard Epstein talking on the phone about famed hairdresser Frederic Fekkai. "I heard him call someone and say Fekkai is in Hawaii. Can we find some girls for him?" Sjoberg testified during a deposition. Fekkai couldn't be reached late Wednesday for comment, but he has denied knowing of Epstein's conduct in the past.

Sjoberg said she never met Clinton, but that Epstein told her they were friends. "He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls," Sjoberg told lawyers during the deposition.

And Sjoberg recalled a 2001 visit to one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City. After their plane was forced to land in Atlantic City instead of New York, Sjoberg recalled that Epstein said, "Great, we'll call up Trump."

The two men socialized together in Palm Beach.

It isn't clear whether Sjoberg ever actually met Trump, and she said that she never gave him a massage. Epstein was known for requiring three massages a day from young women and girls recruited for him by staff at any of his several houses.

A spokesperson for Trump's presidential campaign didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.

The newly released records also include many references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who was close to Epstein and who killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial on charges that he raped underage girls. Giuffre was among the women who accused Brunel of sexual abuse.

Separately, Brunel's estate was sued this week by a woman who alleges that he and others sexually assaulted her while she was working as a model in New York. She says that on one occasion, she was driven to a home in Canada and kept there for several days while men abused her. The lawsuit, filed in state court in California, does not mention Epstein or Maxwell.

Information for this article was contributed by Larry Neumeister of The Associated Press and by Julie K. Brown, Brittany Wallman and Ben Wieder of the Miami Herald (TNS).

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Details of Epstein's sex abuse revealed | Arkansas Democrat Gazette - Arkansas Online