Middleboro Review 2: 08/03/22

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Republican ‘doomsday ticket’ ready for November

Republican candidate for Arizona Governor Kari Lake speaks to supporters. Lake declared victory today, though the Associated Press has yet to call the primary. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

LURCHING RIGHT — Even before Donald Trump, Arizona Republicans had a soft spot for hard-liners. Think Evan Mecham and Joe Arpaio , or the party’s pre-Trump censuring of the late Sen. John McCain .

But what may soon be different after Tuesday’s elections is that with Kari Lake poised to win the gubernatorial primary alongside a stable of fellow election conspiracy theorists, there is no longer any traditionalist wing of the Republican Party in Arizona holding the line.

Not McCain or Doug Ducey, the outgoing Republican governor who went in for Lake’s more establishment-minded opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson. Not former Vice President Mike Pence, whose own trip to the state to help Robson — and oppose Trump — fell flat.

In some states where Trump’s endorsed candidates have lost primaries this year, including in Georgia, Nebraska and Idaho, institutionalists held on. But in one of the most critical swing states in the country — and in a place where Trump’s brand may be especially damaging in the general election and in 2024 — the old Republican establishment has been replaced with election deniers from the top to the bottom of the statewide ticket.

“I will call in a bit to talk about the doomsday ticket,” Barrett Marson, a Republican political strategist in the state, said today, when Nightly reached out to him to talk about the results. “Let me wake up and finish crying.”

A prominent Republican in the state had texted him a GIF of Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff.

Marson’s concerns are shared by mainstream Republicans in other states. But Arizona has an especially toxic relationship with Trump. The GOP during his tenure lost two Senate seats and a presidential election in the state for the first time since 1996. Trump-ism, as was painfully obvious to the GOP in Arizona in 2020, is a hard sell in Phoenix and its heavily populated suburbs.

Yet if Trump-y politics are difficult for the GOP in Arizona, that’s about all the state party has going now.

As of this evening, Lake, a former TV anchor who has said she would not have certified the 2020 election , had pulled ahead in the gubernatorial race. If her lead holds, as Republicans in Arizona expect, she will now be the party’s standard bearer.

Then there’s state Rep. Mark Finchem, a celebrity in election conspiracy circles, who won his primary for secretary of state. Republican speaker of Arizona’s House Rusty Bowers, who was censured by the state Republican Party for testifying to the Jan. 6 committee about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, got shellacked by a Trump-backed challenger who thinks the devil was at work in the 2020 outcome.

In the primary for state attorney general, Trump-endorsed Abe Hamadeh, another election denier — and a critic of “weak-kneed Republicans” — prevailed. And in the U.S. Senate primary, Blake Masters, who maintains Trump won in 2020 , also won.

“The Trump-endorsed candidates ran the table,” said Stan Barnes, a former state lawmaker and longtime Republican consultant.

For Democrats, this was all good news.

Instead of inflation or education any of the other “traditional campaign issues that candidates normally discuss,” Barnes said, Democrats in Arizona this fall “get to talk about the Trump candidates. They get to talk about running against Donald Trump.”

It might be enough to keep Trump’s class of Arizona Republicans from ever taking office. On the other hand, the environment is so good for the GOP nationally this year that some or all of them may win.

For Republicans hoping for a post-Trump reform, that outcome may be even worse.

“I think the only way back is by humiliation at the ballot box, and the problem is the Democrats aren’t strong enough to do that,” said Bill Gates, a Republican Maricopa County supervisor.

Of the Republicans, he said, “I think they are electable, which is frightening.”

“The election last night was a catastrophe for the Arizona Republican Party,” Gates said, “and, I would argue, our democracy.”

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at dsiders@politico.com or on Twitter at @davidsiders .

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today .

WHAT'D I MISS?

— Indiana GOP Rep. Walorski, 3 others die in auto accident: The Indiana Republican was a senior House member, her party’s top member on the House Ethics Committee and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. Her communications director, Emma Thomson, and Zachary Potts of the St. Joseph County Republican Party were also killed in the accident, the sheriff’s office announced, as was the driver of the vehicle that collided with theirs. Walorski’s death is a shock to the Capitol community, where two other sitting House members have died this year: Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.) died within a month of each other earlier this year.

— Justice Department sues Peter Navarro for Trump White House emails: The Justice Department today sued the former Trump trade adviser in an effort to force him to turn over emails from his tenure in the White House. Navarro, who worked for the White House during the entirety of Trump’s presidency, had used “at least one non-official email account ... to send and receive messages constituting Presidential records,” the Justice Department said in a court filing. Attorneys also accused him of “wrongfully retaining them” in violation of federal record-keeping laws, as Navarro did not copy the messages into an official government account, nor did he respond to the National Archivist’s initial request for the emails.

— Sinema requests changes to party-line climate, health care and tax bill: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz), who has not weighed in on whether she will vote for the legislation, wants to nix language narrowing the so-called carried interest loophole, which would change the way some investment income is taxed, according to three people familiar with the matter. Cutting that provision would ax $14 billion of the bill’s $739 billion in projected revenue. Sinema also wants roughly $5 billion in drought resiliency funding added to the legislation, a key request for Arizona given the state’s problems with water supply.

— Biden and Harris praise Kansas voters for defeating anti-abortion amendment: President Joe Biden today lauded voters in Kansas for rejecting a constitutional measure that would have stripped abortion protections from the state’s constitution. The failed Kansas amendment comes as the Biden administration makes a move to protect pregnant people who travel for access to reproductive care. Biden signed an executive order at today’s meeting that would examine ways to protect pregnant people who have to travel out of state for an abortion if their state bans it.

— Senate overwhelmingly backs NATO membership for Finland, Sweden: The Senate today voted overwhelmingly to admit Finland and Sweden to NATO , putting the military alliance on track for a historic expansion in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. With 95 senators voting in favor, the defense treaty heads to President Joe Biden’s desk where he is expected to ratify it in the coming days, making the U.S. the 22nd NATO nation to give its approval. All 30 NATO members are expected to complete the ratification process before the end of the year, in a signal to Moscow that the alliance will not shirk from deterring future Russian aggression. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was the only senator to vote against the treaty.

AROUND THE WORLD

DOWN TO THE WIRE — The European Union is making a final push to save the Iran nuclear deal, convening all negotiators for an unexpected and sudden resumption of talks on Thursday, three sources familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

The goal — as it has been for months — is to restore a 2015 deal that saw Iran agree to limit its nuclear ambitions in exchange for heavy sanctions relief, writes Stephanie Liechtenstein. The agreement has been all but dead since the U.S. pulled out in 2018. Talks to revive it ran aground earlier this year.

Negotiators are now descending on Vienna to see if there’s any sliver of hope left. Diplomats will be present from the U.S., Iran, China, Russia, Germany, Britain and France, as well as the EU, which is acting as a mediator since Iran refuses to talk directly to the U.S.

It is not yet clear how senior the officials present will be and how long the talks will last. Sources familiar with the negotiations played down expectations and cautioned that it was far too early to say whether the talks will be successful.

Nancy Pelosi poses for photographs with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen. | Chien Chih-Hung/Office of The President

PERMISSION FOR FLYBY — Washington is on edge as China readies a series of provocative military drills set to kick off on Thursday in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, writes Lara Seligman and Paul McLeary . Beijing has threatened incursions into the island’s territory, and for the first time, conventional missile launches over the island.

The Chinese navy is positioning warships around the island , including its two aircraft carriers that have left port in recent days, in what officials described as a blockade. The Chinese defense ministry released a map of six zones surrounding the island where it plans to conduct the drills, some of which potentially overlap with Taiwan’s territorial waters. The live-fire exercises will begin at noon local time on Thursday and last three days.

Officials say they see China’s moves thus far as mostly bluster. But there are signs Beijing is planning more provocative military actions during the upcoming exercise. China has never before flown aircraft or launched missiles into Taiwan’s territorial waters — something that could happen during the drills, said Bonnie Glaser, an East Asia analyst at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .

NIGHTLY NUMBER

$39.3 billion

The amount of money that investors have pulled out of emerging markets since March, stoking fears that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation could set off a series of economic crises in developing countries around the world.

PARTING WORDS

WALKING BACK — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones testified today that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it was “100% real,” according to the Associated Press.

Speaking a day after the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the 2012 attack testified about the suffering, death threats and harassment they’ve endured because of what Jones has trumpeted on his media platforms, the Infowars host told a Texas courtroom that he definitely thinks the attack happened.

“Especially since I’ve met the parents. It’s 100% real,” Jones said at his trial to determine how much he and his media company, Free Speech Systems, owe for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. Their son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 students and six educators who were killed in the attack in Newtown, Conn., which was the deadliest school shooting in American history.

At one point, Heslin and Lewis’s lawyer Mark Bankston informed Jones that his attorneys had mistakenly sent Bankston the last two years’ worth of texts from Jones’ cellphone. Jones had previously testified in a deposition that he had no texts on his phone about the shooting. “Do you know what perjury is?” Bankston asked Jones.

Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.

Follow us on Twitter

Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie

Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh

Myah Ward @myahward

Naomi Andu @naomiandu

FOLLOW US

POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

RSN: FOCUS: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | The Bill Russell I Knew for 60 Years

03 August 22

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

FOCUS: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | The Bill Russell I Knew for 60 Years
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Atlantic
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "I first met the legendary basketball player when I was 14, and he showed me how to be a better player - and a better man."

I first met the legendary basketball player when I was 14, and he showed me how to be a better player—and a better man.

When I learned that my friend Bill Russell had died, I tweeted this response: “Bill Russell was the quintessential Big Man—not because of his height but because of the size of his heart. In basketball he showed us how to play with grace and passion. In life he showed us how to live with compassion and joy. He was my friend, my mentor, my role model.”

That’s as much truth as I could fit into a tweet. But there is a whole lot more truth and love and respect in my 60-year relationship with Bill Russell that I want to share so the world can know him, not just as one of the greatest basketball players to ever live, but as a man who taught me how to be bigger—as a player and as a man.

There will be many biographical articles extolling Bill’s many achievements as a player and as an activist. The records, the stats, the awards, etc. This is not that kind of article. This is simply about Bill and me and two long lives that intertwined for six decades.

My First Meeting With Bill Russell Went South Fast

I first met Bill Russell in 1961, when I was a 14-year-old freshman at Power Memorial High School. I had just arrived at the school gym for team practice, only to find the Boston Celtics practicing instead. I was surprised to see a professional team in our gym, especially the NBA champions for the past three seasons in a row. As I found out later, because our gym was only 12 blocks from Madison Square Garden and near to several hotels, it was a convenient place for teams to practice.

As I wandered into the gym, I saw, sitting casually on the bleacher bench, reading The New York Times, Bill Russell. The Secretary of Defense himself. My personal hero.

I also saw my coach, Jack Donohue, chatting with the Celtics coach, Red Auerbach. Being naturally shy and unnaturally polite, I decided to head downstairs to the locker room and wait patiently until they were done. Maybe I could find a copy of the Times to read too.

“Lew, c’mere,” Coach Donohue called to me.

I gulped. Me?

I shuffled over to Coach Donohue, who introduced me to Coach Auerbach. Coach Auerbach gestured at Bill Russell. “Hey, Bill, c’mere. I want you to meet this kid.”

Bill Russell dipped down his newspaper and looked me over with a frown. Then he snorted. “I’m not getting up just to meet some kid.”

I shrank to about six inches tall. I just wanted to run straight home.

Auerbach chuckled. “Don’t let him get to you, kid. Sometimes he can be a real sourpuss.” He grabbed my wrist and walked me over to Russell.

“Bill, be nice. This is the kid who just might be the next you.”

Bill looked at me again, this time taking a little longer. I was already seven feet—two inches taller than him.

I stuck out my hand. “How do you do, Mr. Russell. Pleasure to meet you.”

He didn’t smile, but his demeanor had softened, just a little. He shook my hand. “Yeah, yeah, kid.”

That’s how I met my childhood hero.

They say you should never meet your heroes. That it’s mostly disappointing, disillusioning, or disheartening. But that wasn’t my experience. I was thrilled. He spoke to me. And I thought I saw in his eyes a recognition of someone, like him, who had a passion for the game that burned deep and hot and bright.

Or maybe that’s what I wanted to see.

Either way, it fueled me to strive harder to be more like him.

How Bill Russell Inspired Me as a Player

After that first meeting, every time I ran into him, he was more and more open and forthcoming. At each meeting, I made it my mission to try to make him laugh. He had a high-pitched giggle of a laugh—something between a warbling goose and a braying donkey—and nothing brightened a room like it. When Bill laughed, you couldn’t not laugh along.

It would be a while before we met again, but I continued to study Bill Russell the way Oppenheimer studied Einstein. I even had a 1956 photo of Bill soaring high into the air during an NCAA high jump while attending the University of San Francisco. The image of Bill with his hands splayed out in front of him as if he were flying made me think that, with hard work, I could also reach those heights. What that must feel like, I wondered, determined to find out. In the photo, Bill has only one shoe on, the other foot covered in a loose sock. To me, that showed his commitment and focus—nothing could shake his will to win. I realized then how much work I had to do to compete with athletes like him.

There was something else about that photo that affected me even more than Bill’s amazing performance. If you do a search of the image, you’ll find that most versions are cropped to frame Bill flying up over the bar. Yet, if you see the complete photo, you’ll see about three dozen white people watching him, most of them frowning, glaring, or just staring. But standing beside the post is one young Black kid with a smile on his face. A kid who suddenly saw the possibilities for achievement, despite a crowd of mostly white faces who maybe saw the future of sports in America—and didn’t like what they saw.

I was that smiling kid, at least in my mind. And that photo inspired me to spend much of my high-school career emulating Bill’s playing technique.

I attended his games whenever the Celtics played the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, and I would watch them for four to five years when they practiced at my school gym. I learned how to dominate in the paint by applying defensive pressure. If you can deny the opponent any rebounds, it’s easy to have a fast-break game. If you can effectively block their shots, you force them to adjust their game into an offense they’re not as familiar with. Watching him, I realized that Bill seemed to know what each player was going to do before they did. He anticipated their move like a chess master, then sprang into the air to block them before they knew what was happening. He didn’t play one-size-fits-all defense; he customized his defense to fit each player.

Those were the Teachings of Bill Russell, whether or not he knew it. And I learned his teachings well. To better understand those lessons, watch this:

How Bill Russell Inspired Me as an Activist

I always knew I wanted to be active in civil rights, but I didn’t always know how I would do that. I had attended some anti-war and civil-rights protests rallies while at UCLA, but I knew that wasn’t enough. In 1967, when I was 20 years old, the football legend turned Hollywood actor Jim Brown asked me to join what became known as the Cleveland Summit. We were a group of mostly Black athletes—including Bill Russell, Carl Stokes, Walter Beach, Bobby Mitchell, Sid Williams, Curtis McClinton, Willie Davis, Jim Shorter, and John Wooten—tasked with determining the sincerity of Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted by the U.S. Army based on his religious views as a Muslim. Several of the group were ex-military and did not look sympathetically on Ali’s stance.

Bill was the most famous member of the summit, other than Jim Brown and Ali, but he never tried to leverage that to influence the rest of us. His approach was logical and dispassionate, encouraging us to listen with open minds to what Ali had to say. That reasonable approach proved to be much more effective than trying to sway us. He knew that Ali could speak eloquently and passionately for himself, and that if we were open, we would see the truth in what he said. That was a huge lesson in humility and leadership that guided me for many years after.

The Bill Russell of the Cleveland Summit was who I wanted to be when I grew up. In fact, the Bill Russell of the Cleveland Summit made me grow up right then and there. As I had emulated him on the court, I chose to also emulate him off the court. I read interviews with him, and I read his 1966 autobiography, Go Up for Glory, about his experiences growing up in segregated America and the obstacles he faced as a Black man, despite his fame and accomplishments. What especially struck home was his refusal to become the stereotypical Angry Black Man that many tried to force him to be. Instead, he chose to focus on finding a path to change and social justice through specific actions and programs.

Years later, when some in the press tried to characterize me as the Angry Black Man, I tried to follow Bill’s rational example to remain calm and join the fight by championing specific solutions rather than just raging and shaking my fist. Although sometimes the frustrations call for a good fist-shaking. Then, as Bill taught me, it’s back to doing the hard work that actually brings change.

Me and Bill as Old Men

I was 67 years old when I finally got up the courage to ask Bill for something I’d wanted since meeting him 53 years earlier: his autograph. Bill, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and I were shooting a commercial for AT&T. We all had so much fun that day joking around with one another that I thought it was the perfect time to spring into action.

We were taking a break between filming. I saw Bill sitting comfortably in a chair, sipping coffee. I stalked him the way he’d taught me to stalk players right before leaping up to block their shot. I got closer, a big, disarming smile on my face. He looked up, unsuspecting.

“Hey, Bill,” I said. “Wonder if you’d do me a favor.”

He just looked at me. “Hmmm.”

I whipped out the jersey from behind my back. His home jersey from the Celtics. Number 6. I held up a black Sharpie. “Mind autographing this for me?”

He gave me a long look, took the jersey and Sharpie, signed it, handed it back.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Sure, kid,” he said. He had continued to call me kid since our first meeting, when I was 14. I think that was his good-natured way of reminding me that he had been there first and I would always be following in his giant steps.

And that was just fine with me.

The last time I saw Bill was last summer at a family barbecue at Lakers headquarters. He saw me walking toward him, smiled, and said, “Hello, kid.”

I smiled back and tried to think of how I would make him laugh.

Contribute to RSN

Update My Monthly Donation

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611