Mediaboss Marketing

Six top Republican elected officials in Chesapeake announced theyre withdrawing their support for City Council candidate Amanda Newins after learning shes being sued and investigated for claims of elder abuse.

In a statement, the officials said they encourage others who are likeminded and equally disappointed by these revelations to do the same.

Listed as endorsing it were Sheriff Jim OSullivan, Commonwealths Attorney Matthew Hamel, Clerk of the Circuit Court Alan Krasnoff and City Council members Stephen Best, Don Carey, and Robert Ike.

The letter went on to say the group was hoping for a meaningful response from Ms. Newins and our local party chairman, Nicholas Proffitt, but their silence has been deafening. As elected officials who have spent years working to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Chesapeakes senior citizens, we cannot remain silent in the face of these allegations of persistent elder abuse.

Chesapeake City Council candidate Amanda Newins. (Courtesy of Amanda Newins)

Newins emailed a response Friday, saying the news was not unexpected.

It doesnt surprise me that a group of individuals who have worked tirelessly against me for the past seven months and have instead supported a non-Republican candidate, now say they continue to not support me, she wrote. What does surprise me, is that they would suggest it is due to a complaint filed 59 days before the election, where the lead attorney has known political ties to that same non-Republican candidate they support.

I am confident that the people of Chesapeake see this for what it is. It is heartwarming that among others, the following individuals have supported me from the beginning and continue to support me as they believe that I will help lead Chesapeake in the right direction.

Among the people Newins listed as supporters were former U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, state senators John Cosgrove and Jen Kiggans, delegates Jay Leftwich and Barry Knight, Mayor Rick West, Vice Mayor John de Triquet, Councilmember Debbie Ritter, school board member Christie New Craig, former Commonwealths Attorney Nancy Parr, former Commissioner of the Revenue Ray Conner, Chesapeake Treasurer Barbara Carraway, and Proffitt, chair of the Chesapeake Republican Party.

Daily

Start your morning in-the-know with the day's top stories.

Newins, 30, a lawyer and vice president of the Chesapeake Bar Association, was sued this week by a great aunt who claims Newins mistreated her and her late husband, and stole hundreds of thousands in property and cash from them. The claim seeks $540,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

A Chesapeake police spokesman confirmed on Wednesday the department received a complaint about the allegations and was investigating them.

Newins is among 13 candidates running for one of five open seats on the City Council.

Alison Zizzo, an attorney who represents Newins, issued a statement earlier this week in which she called the lawsuit baseless and questioned the timing of it being filed so close to the election.

Proffitt also said the statement was not a surprise to him in an email sent Friday to The Pilot.

Steve Best, Don Carey, Matt Hamel, Robert Ike, and Alan Krasnoff have never endorsed either Amanda Newins or the Endorsed Republican Ticket, Proffitt wrote. Furthermore, they have been actively supporting one of Ms. Newins and our endorsed tickets non-Republican opponents, whose campaign representative is the lead attorney in this lawsuit against Ms. Newins.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com

Read the rest here:
Chesapeake Republican officials withdraw support for City Council candidate amid accusations of elder abuse - The Virginian-Pilot

WASHINGTON Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to be chair of the House Republican Conference again.

In an announcement Tuesday, Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, declared her intention to seek a second term in the position, which places her as the third most senior Republican representative in the House.

I am proud to have unified the entire Republican conference around our country in crisis message and shattered fundraising records as House GOP Conference Chair, raising over $10 million for candidates and committees this cycle, she said in a statement. With the broad support of NY-21 and my House GOP colleagues, I intend to run for Conference Chair in the next Congress.

CONFERENCE CHAIR

Stefanik took the mantle in 2021, after the conference removed Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from the position over her vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.

The conference chair is typically tasked with developing messaging and public platforms House Republican members are expected to use as they argue for or against legislation and government actions. Rep. Stefanik has led many campaigns against President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats and their policies on issues including border security, election security, baby formula supplies, inflation, job growth, foreign affairs, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and much more.

Conference chairs typically serve for two-year terms. They campaign for the office and are elected by their party membership before the new Congress starts. Stefanik will have at least one competitor for the role, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fl., according to reports from The Hill.

CASTELLI RESPONSE

Matt Castelli, Stefaniks Democratic competitor for the 21st Congressional District seat criticized her for planning such a move before the election, arguing that it shows she is assuming the results will go in her favor and disrespecting the will of NY-21 voters.

Without a single vote being cast yet, NY-20 resident Elise Stefanik is already measuring the drapes for her office next year, and choosing which position she believes will boost her climb of the D.C. career ladder, he said. Stefanik doesnt believe NY-21 voters should have a say in who represents them thats why she fails to show up in our community, refuses to meet directly with voters, consistently votes against our interests, and even refuses to debate me.

Stefaniks announcement that she will seek the conference chair position puts to bed months of speculation that she may seek an even higher office, such as House majority whip, should Republicans win control of the chamber.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

Read this article:
Stefanik says she will seek second term as chair of House Republican Conference - Plattsburgh Press Republican

Shane Hernandez, the Republican lieutenant governor nominee and Port Huron resident, met with St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King and Sanilac County Sheriff Paul Rich Friday to discuss challenges facing law enforcement today.

King and Rich said one of their largest challenges is recruiting enough law enforcement officers to fill their ranks. It's also a challenge to retain officers that otherwise might be lured to other larger, more urban departments by the promise of better wages and benefits.

"My number one priority right now would be training staffing that wants to stay and live in our community," Rich said.

Rich said retention is especially difficult for his rural department, which doesn't have the budget to compete with the wages of larger departments. They spend tens of thousands of dollars to equip and outfit new officers, only for them to leave.

While the St. Clair County Sheriff Department offers a pension plan to road patrol deputies, most departments don't anymore. A pension can usually only be collected from a specific department, but other retirement plans such as 401Ks can move with the officer, taking away an incentive to stay with one department their whole career, King said.

Rich said the public sector can't compete in wages and benefits with private sector jobs. King said a possible solution is to create a federally-funded pension program for law enforcement officers so that departments can focus more of their budgets on wages.

King said another factor contributing to the staffing shortage within law enforcement is a loss of respect and interest in the profession from the general public in the last decade due to negative media attention of a few bad police actions.

Republican governor candidate Tudor Dixon's plan slates $1 billion in funding for public safety over four years. Hernandez said this would be drawn from the state's general fund. Although it was not clear where the funding would come from in the general fund, Hernandez said in years past the state has had a surplus and they'd be able to find the dollars for the effort.

The plan is designed to provide incentives to retain and recruit new law enforcement officers, firefighters and EMS professionals as a way to alleviate staffing shortages and increase public safety.

The plan includes:

Hernandez emphasized public safety as the root of a thriving community.

"If we're gonna talk about jobs in our community, or affordable housing in our community, or education in our community, none of those can happen without a safe community," Hernandez said.

Dixon's agenda points to a reported rise in violent crime in the few years prior to 2020.

According to the FBI's Unified Crime Reporting database, from 2019 to 2020, the violent crime rate in Michigan jumped from 438.6 per 100,000 to 478 per 100,000, compared to the national rate of 380 to 398.5 per 100,000, respectively. That is the highest violent crime rate the state and the nation has seen since 2010, when crime was 493 for Michigan and 404.5 for the nation per 100,000.

But from 2016 to 2018, the crime rate stayed relatively stable between 460.9 and 452.5 per 100,000 in Michigan, according to the data.

King said violent crime is on the rise the past couple of years, and pointed to a rise in repeat offenders and violent incidents such as two kidnappings and one attempted murder this year.

King also said the rise of methamphetamine as the predominant drug of choice breeds violence. St. Clair County faces special challenges in policing the illegal drug trade due to the two interstates that begin in the county, as well as an international border and two cities within drivable distance that draw drug dealers to sell their product.

"Violent crime is absolutely on the rise," King said.

King said in 2019, prior to the pandemic, the St. Clair County Sheriff Drug Task Force seized 104 weapons and 107 grams of methamphetamine, compared to 304 weapons and 3,774 grams of methamphetamine seized in 2021.

"Meth and guns equal violence, there is no doubt about it," King said.

In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 113 violent-crime incidents and 140 offenses reported by the St. Clair County Sheriff Department to the FBI's UCR database. In 2019, there were 130 incidents and 148 offenses, compared to 2018, with 211 incidents and 247 offenses.

The Sanilac County Sheriff Department reported 30 violent-crime incidents and 38 offenses; 24 incidents and 34 offenses in 2019, and 44 incidents and 52 offenses in 2018, according to the FBI data

Violent crime statistics for 2021 and 2022 were not immediately available by either sheriff department.

Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com.

See more here:
GOP lieutenant governor nominee meets with county sheriffs to discuss public safety issues - The Times Herald

Jason Riley is an opinion columnist at The Wall Street Journal, where his column, Upward Mobility, has run since 2016. He is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and provides television commentary for various news outlets.

Mr. Riley, a 2018 Bradley Prize recipient, is the author of four books: Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders (2008); Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals MakeIt Harder for Blacks to Succeed (2014); False Black Power? (2017); and Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell (2021).

Mr. Riley joined the paper in 1994 as a copy reader on the national news desk in New York. He moved to the editorial page in 1995, was named a senior editorial page writer in 2000, and became a member of the Editorial Board in 2005. He joined the Manhattan Institute in 2015.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Mr. Riley earned a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

He has also worked for USA Today and the Buffalo News.

See the rest here:
Abortion, Polling and Other Republican Midterm Troubles - The Wall Street Journal

Now that the GOP has succeeded in its decades-long push to overturn Roe v. Wade, conservatives are turning to the next front in their war on reproductive rights: a national abortion ban. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a top ally of Donald Trump, is introducing a bill that would federally prohibit the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It doesnt go as far as the heartbeat bill his colleague, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, has proposed. But Grahams measure, dubbed the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, would nonetheless constitute an extreme attack on reproductive freedom and healthcare and incidentally, on the states rights Republicans say are near and dear to their heart.

If you'll recall, states' rights had seemed top of mind for Republicans back in June, when Samuel Alito and the Supreme Courts conservative supermajority issued its Dobbs decision and ended federal abortion protections. The power to decide this profound moral question has officially returned to the states, where it will be debated and settled in the way it should be in our democratic society by the people, Republican Representative Ken Buck of Colorado said in a news release at the time. Graham himself echoed that point in a CNN interview just last month, arguing that states should decide the issue of marriage and states should decide the issue of abortion.

But, as The Washington Post pointed out last week, that hasnt stopped Republicans like Buck and Graham from expressing support for a national abortion ban a sweeping invasion of privacy that would seem to trample over state sovereignty. As Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote Tuesday, Overturning Roe was never about giving power back to states. It was about controlling our bodies and our personal autonomy. We cannot let this happen.

The timing of Grahams legislation is somewhat curious, coming two months before an election that has, in part, become a referendum on Dobbs: All across the country, Republican candidates have scrambled to soften or hide their extreme anti-abortion stances while Democrats, who were just months ago bracing for a November shellacking, continue to gain momentum in the midterms. But putting forth a nationwide ban which, as Sean Hannity approvingly noted Monday evening, mirrors the Mississippi law at the center of the Dobbs case appears to confirm Democrats dire warnings that the GOP seeks to outlaw abortion not just in GOP-led states but throughout every state in the union.

Its unclear how much traction Grahams legislation will have within his party at least with the midterms looming. But even if the party doesnt mobilize around him now, Grahams latest proposal the most extreme antiabortion legislation hes ever introduced serves as a preview of what a GOP majority is likely pursue on Capitol Hill. Indeed, a number of Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have expressed support for draconian federal restrictions. Would they be able to pull it off? Thats hard to say. But the prospect of such a move underscores the danger the GOP continues to pose to reproductive rights in this country.

A national abortion ban may be wildly unpopular, but thats also sort of the point. If Republicans were to truly confer such policies to the will of the people, as Buck put it, Roe probably wouldnt have been overturned in the first place. Polls have consistently shown that an overwhelming majority of Americans support reproductive freedom. Even in the GOP-led state of Kansas, voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative that would have stripped abortion protections from the state constitution. Voters may be poised to do so again in states like Michigan, where Republicans tried and failed to block a ballot measure to let the citizens decide. States rights," the GOP is learning, might be a nice rallying cry when youre trying to justify the Supreme Court breaking with five decades of precedent. But its far less appealing when states dont do exactly as you want them to.

Visit link:
So Much for States' Rights: Republicans Are Eyeing a National Abortion Ban - Vanity Fair