Thursday, May 02nd
Last update07:18:00 AM GMT
Congressional Glance
More than 56,000 voters in a Chicago-area congressional district cast votes Tuesday for an avowed Nazi and Holocaust denier.
Self-proclaimed Nazi Arthur Jones, running as a Republican, managed more than a quarter of the vote against Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski in the district that includes parts of Chicago’s South Side and several neighboring suburbs.
Lipinski, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, coasted to re-election.
In the final days before midterms, in a sleepy farm district in ruby red Trump country, the re-election campaign of Iowa Rep. Steve King has become a surprise electoral bellwether for Democrats’ chances of retaking the House.
King, one of the most hard-line Republicans in Congress, was last elected for his eighth term in 2016 with 61 percent of the vote; in 2016, Donald Trump won his county by 27 points. Yet as of Monday, his lead against Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten has narrowed to just one point.
A combination of factors have complicated King’s once-dominant electoral position. For one, Trump’s extreme rhetoric on immigration has turned up the temperature in midterm races across the country, forcing Republicans to take increasingly controversial positions on issues like child detention, militarizing the U.S. border, and birthright citizenship.
Speaking to CNN’s Chris Cuomo late Friday, Swisher said Kavanaugh’s claims of never engaging in out-of-control drinking were not accurate. “He drank heavily,” she said, calling him a “sloppy drunk.”
While Swisher said she had never witnessed any behavior that would lend credence to Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation against him, she said the image he is presenting of himself as an avid church-goer and athlete who simply liked to have beer from time to time is not true. “I don’t buy it. That’s not the Brett I knew, as soon as I met him in college. It’s not the Brett I saw during four years at Yale.
A "terrified" and visibly emotional Christine Blasey Ford described in vivid detail on Thursday her allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in Maryland in 1982.
In front of rapt senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ford explained how Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge took her into a room at the party and how the alleged assault changed the course of her life.
"I believed he was going to rape me,” Ford said. “I believed Brett was going to accidentally kill me."
Subtly addressing questions from some Kavanaugh supporters about why she didn't come forward earlier, Ford recalled that she had told herself she "should just move on" because she was not raped. And questioned by Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ford said that she was “100 percent” certain that it was Kavanaugh that assaulted her and nobody else.
Minnesota state Rep. Jim Knoblach abruptly ended his re-election campaign Friday amid allegations of inappropriate touching from his adult daughter.
Minnesota Public Radio reported the announcement came hours after the St. Cloud Republican's attorney, Susan Gaertner, denied the allegations in an interview with the station. She said the veteran lawmaker "does not want to drag his family through six weeks of hell."
“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Feinstein said in a statement. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”
The White House budget office believes it has found a way to cancel about $3 billion in foreign aid even if it is never approved by Congress, according to a Republican aide familiar with the plan.
Using an obscure budget rule, administration officials are planning to freeze billions of dollars in the State Department’s international assistance budget — just long enough so the funds will expire. The current plan involves about $3 billion, though officials are said to have discussed as much as $5 billion.
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