Gov. Kathy Hochul and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado celebrate at her campaign party last night. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Dear Commons Community,

Kathy Hochul became the first woman elected governor of New York yesterday after overcoming a tighter-than-expected race and defeating Republican challenger Lee Zeldin.

The Democratic incumbent, buoyed by high voter turnout in New York City, declared victory shortly after 11 p.m. and will now serve a full four-year term in office. As reported by the New York Daily News and the Associated Press.

“Tonight you made your voices heard loud and clear and you made me the first woman to ever be elected the governor of the state of New York,” Hochul said to a chorus of cheers at Capitale, a Lower Manhattan event space with Greek-style architecture and a glass ceiling. “But I’m not here to make history, I’m here to make a difference.

“I will lead with strength and compassion not with fear and anger,” she added.

The Associated Press didn’t call the race for Hochul until shortly before 1 a.m. as Hochul maintained a slim seven-point lead according to unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

For much of the night, technical issues prevented results from being tabulated from Suffolk County, Zeldin’s home turf. NBC and ABC called the race before midnight.

Hochul’s win was far from certain even in deep blue New York as she faced off against Zeldin, a Donald Trump-endorsed Long Island congressman whose focus on crime boosted his bid to become the first Republican elected statewide in over two decades.

Zeldin refused to concede as he briefly addressed supporters at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan shortly after midnight.

“What’s going to happen is in the next couple of hours you’re going to see the race get closer and closer and closer and closer,” he said before encouraging backers to take advantage of the open bar.

“We came to this with passion, to have a debate of ideas,” he added. “We’re still totally committed to seeing this through. We hope, as these results come in, that we’ll be able to prevail.”

Hochul was vaulted to the pinnacle of New York politics last year after sexual harassment allegations prompted the resignation of Andrew Cuomo.

A Buffalo native and former one-term member of Congress, Hochul served as Cuomo’s second-in-command for seven years before his stunning downfall led to her ascension 14 months ago.

The 64-year-old declared her intention to run for a full term shortly before taking over the reins of state government from her predecessor, vowing to help people “believe in their government again.”

Hochul cruised to victory in June’s Democratic primary and entered the general election against Zeldin as a commanding front-runner with a well-stocked campaign war chest.

In a state where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, Hochul appeared to have the race squared away with summer polling showing a double-digit lead.

Zeldin, a conservative congressman from Suffolk County with close ties to Trump, gained ground in recent months as he hammered Hochul over crime and inflation.

The race narrowed as Zeldin trimmed his campaign down to a near-singular focus on public safety and vowed to undo Dem-backed criminal justice reforms such as cashless bail.

He pledged to declare a crime emergency, fire Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s progressive district attorney, and described his candidacy as a “rescue mission.”

He attempted to align himself with Mayor Adams, even as the Democrat and former cop endorsed Hochul and toned down his rhetoric on criminal justice issues, and implored disaffected Dems to back his bid.

One such supporter was Ruben Diaz Sr., a former City Council member, who said he crossed party lines in an attempt to attempt to wake fellow Dems up to the impact violent crime is having in Black and brown communities.

The veteran Bronx pol said crime is not nearly as bad as it was in the city in the 80s and 90s when it reached its height, but worried that “it’s getting there.”

“I’m trying to send an S.O.S. We need help,” Diaz, clad in his signature cowboy hat, said as he joined Zeldin backers at the candidate’s election night watch party. “This is not about Democrat or Republican. This is about our children, our families, about our city, about our state about our senior citizens so I gotta do what I gotta do.”

Zeldin raced around the city in recent weeks, appearing at crime scene after crime scene and painting Hochul as out of touch with New Yorkers’ concerns.

Adding to his late-race momentum, a pair of conservative Super PACs backing his bid flooded the airwaves with anti-Hochul ads.

The governor, meanwhile, spent much of her campaign calling out Zeldin over his anti-abortion stance, his allegiance to Trump and his vote against certifying the results of the 2020 election.

Hochul accused Zeldin of fearmongering and touted her work with Adams on strengthening subway security with more cops and cameras in the wake of a spate of high profile violent incidents.

“He has been hyperventilating, trying to scare people for months and New Yorkers are onto it,” the governor said on Monday. “All the legitimate media organizations have called him out for what he is doing, fear-mongering.”

Congratulation Governor Hochul!

Tony

Associated Press as of 6:00 am (Wednesday 11/09/22)

Dear Commons Community,

The Republican “red wave” that many pundits were predicting did not happen yesterday in the midterm elections.  While it is likely that the GOP will control the House of Representatives, the margin will probably be in the five to ten range.  The US Senate is still undecided but leans Democratic although a runoff election in Georgia in December is likely. Here is an analysis courtesy of the Associated Press.

Control of Congress hung in the balance early Wednesday as Democrats showed surprising strength, defeating Republicans in a series of competitive races and defying expectations that high inflation and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings would drag the party down.

In the most heartening news for Democrats, John Fetterman flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat that is key to the party’s hopes of maintaining control of the chamber. It was too early to call critical Senate seats in Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona that could determine the majority. In the House, meanwhile, Democrats kept seats in districts from Virginia to Kansas to Rhode Island, while many districts in states like New York and California had not been called.

Democrats also were successful in governors’ races, winning in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — battlegrounds critical to Biden’s 2020 win over former President Donald Trump. But Republicans held on to governors’ mansions in Florida, Texas and Georgia, another battleground state Biden narrowly won two years ago.

With votes still being counted across the country, Republicans still had the opportunity to win control of Congress. But the results were uplifting for Democrats who were braced for sweeping losses, and raised questions about the size of Republicans’ governing majority if they win the House.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican poised to be House speaker if the GOP takes control of the chamber, was optimistic the GOP would take control, telling supporters, “When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority.” Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “While many races remain too close to call, it is clear that House Democratic Members and candidates are strongly outperforming expectations across the country.”

The outcome of races for House and Senate will determine the future of Biden’s agenda and serve as a referendum on his administration as the nation reels from record-high inflation and concerns over the direction of the country. Republican control of the House would likely trigger a round of investigations into Biden and his family, while a GOP Senate takeover would hobble Biden’s ability to make judicial appointments.

Democrats were facing historic headwinds. The party in power almost always suffers losses in the president’s first midterm elections, but Democrats had been hoping that anger from the Supreme Court’s decision to gut abortion rights might energize their voters to buck historical trends.

In the Pennsylvania Senate race, Fetterman had faced questions about his fitness for office after suffering a stroke just days before the state’s primary, but nonetheless bested Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in a major rebuke to Trump, whose endorsement helped Oz win his competitive primary.

“I’m so humbled,” Fetterman, wearing his signature hoodie, told his supporters early Wednesday morning. “This campaign has always been about fighting for everyone who’s ever been knocked down that ever got back up.”

Democrats also held a crucial Senate seat in New Hampshire, where incumbent Maggie Hassan defeated Republican Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who had initially promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but tried to shift away from some of the more extreme positions he took during the GOP primary. Republicans held Senate seats in Ohio and North Carolina.

Also in Pennsylvania, Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro beat Republican Doug Mastriano to keep the governorship of a key presidential battleground state blue. Shapiro’s victory rebuffed an election denier who some feared would not certify a Democratic presidential win in the state in 2024. Democrats Tony Evers in Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Kathy Hochul of New York, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Janet Mills of Maine also repelled Republican challengers.

Incumbent Republican governors had some success. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp won reelection, defeating Stacey Abrams in a rematch of their 2018 race. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, two future possible Republican presidential contenders, beat back Democratic challengers to win in the nation’s two largest red states.

AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the national electorate, showed that high inflation and concerns about the fragility of democracy were heavily influencing voters. Half of voters said inflation factored significantly, with groceries, gasoline, housing, food and other costs that have shot up in the past year. Slightly fewer — 44% — said the future of democracy was their primary consideration.

Biden didn’t entirely shoulder the blame for inflation, with close to half of voters saying the higher-than-usual prices were more because of factors outside of his control. And despite the president bearing criticism from a pessimistic electorate, some of those voters backed Democratic candidates.

Overall, 7 in 10 voters said the ruling overturning the 1973 decision enshrining abortion rights was an important factor in their midterm decisions. VoteCast also showed the reversal was broadly unpopular. About 6 in 10 say they are angry or dissatisfied by it, while about 4 in 10 were pleased. And roughly 6 in 10 say they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide.

There were no widespread problems with ballots or voter intimidation reported around the country, though there were hiccups typical of most Election Days.

In the first national election since the Jan. 6 insurrection, some who participated in or were in the vicinity of the attack on the U.S. Capitol were poised to win elected office. One of those Republican candidates, J.R. Majewski, who was at the U.S. Capitol during the deadly riot and who misrepresented his military service, lost to Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur.

Democratic Reps. Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton held off spirited Republican challengers in Virginia districts the GOP had hoped to flip.

The 2022 elections are on track to cost a projected $16.7 billion at the state and federal level, making them the most expensive midterms ever, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance tracking organization OpenSecrets.

All House seats were up for grabs, as were 34 Senate seats.

Trump lifted Republican Senate candidates to victory in Ohio and North Carolina. JD Vance, the bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” defeated 10-term congressman Tim Ryan, while Rep. Ted Budd beat Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

Trump, who inserted himself into races across the country, endorsing more than 300 candidates, had hoped the night would end in a red wave that he could ride to the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but his picks lost high-stakes contests in Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire. After summoning reporters and his most loyal supporters to a watch party at his Mar-a-Lago club, he ended the night without a triumphant speech.

Biden, meanwhile, spent the night calling Democrats to congratulate them on their wins.

In governors’ races, the GOP faced unexpected headwinds in flipping the office in conservative Kansas, while Democrats were nervous about their prospects in the race in Oregon, typically a liberal bastion.

Despite their liberal history, states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois have elected moderate Republican governors in the past. But the Republican candidates this year appeared to be too conservative in these states, handing Democrats easy victories.

Massachusetts and Maryland also saw historic firsts: Democrat Maura Healey became the first woman elected as Massachusetts governor, as well as the first openly lesbian governor of any state, and Wes Moore became the first Black governor of Maryland.

Healey bested Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts and Moore beat Dan Cox in Maryland, while Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker defeated state Sen. Darren Bailey. Bolduc, Cox and Bailey were among the far-right Republicans that Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars to bolster during the primaries, betting they would be easier to beat in general elections than their more moderate rivals.

Congratulations Democrats!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

After 52 years, IU and Purdue are chopping Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) into two separate pieces. Starting in the fall of 2024, the IUPUI Purdue schools will become an official branch campus of Purdue University, and the remainder of IUPUI will become Indiana University at Indianapolis, a stand-alone institution. According to a statement released by Indiana University, the split will lead to “a more energized role for each university and the production of more graduates ready to participate in the modern economy.”  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

So, at a time when many states and public-college systems are retrenching and merging institutions to deal with tight budgets and dwindling students, Indiana is making a different bet. On one hand, the dissolution of IUPUI illustrates the particular limits of its inorganic hybrid. On the other, it speaks to larger forces, like the surging ascendency of many state flagships in a hyper-competitive market, where branding, distinctiveness, and a wealth of resources compound each other as advantages.

In the end, Inidianapolis will end up with two major research universities operating within its limits.

IUPUI’s divided nature was baked in from its start in 1968. It initially coalesced around a nucleus of individual Indiana University units already present in Indianapolis, including its schools of medicine, nursing, law, and art, as well as a small existing Purdue University presence. Terri Tock, president of the Nashville chapter of the Indiana University Alumni Association, took classes at the university starting in 1972, when it was barely a free-standing institution. “They didn’t have many buildings on campus yet,” she says. But IUPUI fielded sports teams and adopted a team name — the Metros, changed to the Jaguars in 1998 — and grew from a commuter campus into a residential university with more of a unified identity.

It still retained key divisions based on its parental DNA, however, and operates in a bifurcated fashion to this day. The two academic units originally most closely associated with West Lafayette — the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology and the Purdue College of Science — remain so and issue Purdue diplomas to majors. The rest of the university provides a general-education curriculum for all students and specializes in health care, business, liberal arts, and other disciplines, and issues diplomas from Indiana. There has been little overlap between what the two universities brought to the marriage.

Rob Elliott knows IUPUI well. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Purdue side and his master’s from the Indiana side of IUPUI before earning his Ed.D. in instructional systems technology from Indiana’s Bloomington campus and returning to IUPUI as a teaching professor of computer and information technology in the School of Engineering and Technology. As a student and a faculty member, he’s lived with its strange, divided nature. “It’s kind of like the little campus that could,” he says. “Administratively, IUPUI was a little awkward, but we’ve made it work.”

But, he acknowledges and others agree, the university baffled outsiders. It was both Indiana and Purdue and not exactly either. Elliott’s paychecks come from Indiana, but his students’ diplomas come from Purdue. “It felt like every conversation we had,” he says, “we had to start out by explaining IUPUI.”

While combining institutions can create complications, it also often provides benefits, such as cost savings. But such partnerships “ultimately are kind of unstable because of the asymmetry involved,” says Peter Ewell, a senior consultant at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, a nonprofit organization that works with colleges. Indiana University runs IUPUI’s campus, but Purdue’s national profile has risen in recent years, and its “brand identity is sort of buried in IUPUI,” Ewell says, adding that the West Lafayette institution may benefit most from a new stand-alone presence in Indianapolis.

Good luck to the new institutions!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The midterm elections that will determine the balance of power in Washington and state capitals are finally here.

Republicans are predicting a massive red wave as anxious Democrats defend their narrow majorities in Congress while struggling to overcome pervasive concerns about the economy, crime and President Joe Biden’s leadership. Democrats are hoping that a backlash against the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade will save them.

The marquee races are taking place in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which could help determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential contest.

Because of close contests and extended vote counting, it could take days or weeks before the final outcome is known in several key races. 

If you are someone who likes to follow election results, here are six things to watch for courtesy of the Associated Press.

RED WAVE RISING?

All signs point to Republicans making significant gains on Tuesday. But whether it’s a red ripple or a tsunami remains to be seen.

Voters are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the direction of the country as inflation surges and political divisions explode. And history suggests that voters will take out their frustrations on the party in power.

The party that occupies the White House has suffered significant losses in nearly every president’s first midterm election for more than a century. Exceptions were in 1934 during the Great Depression; in 1998 during the effort to impeach Bill Clinton; and in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Democrats were initially hopeful that the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate abortion rights might be enough to disrupt historical trends — or at least limit their losses — but party leaders have turned increasingly concerned as Election Day approached.

Operatives in both parties expect the GOP to win the House majority, which would require a net gain of five seats. But with a big wave, the GOP could win 25 new seats or more. Sensing opportunity, Republican groups invested millions of dollars in Democratic-leaning districts in California, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania in the election’s final days.

The fight for the Senate majority is more competitive. If Republicans pick up even one seat, they would control the Senate’s upper chamber.

Democrats are fighting to protect vulnerable incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire, while Republicans believe they’re within striking distance in Colorado and Washington state. The GOP chances are hampered somewhat by flawed candidates in Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire, who have been boosted by former President Donald Trump.

Pennsylvania represents the Democrats’ best opportunity to flip a Republican-held seat, while GOP-held seats in North Carolina and Wisconsin also remain close.

At the same time, races for governor and statewide officers like secretary of state loom larger than normal. The political environment is giving Republicans confidence in gubernatorial races in blue states like Oregon and New Mexico.

Should a massive red wave materialize, Democrats may struggle everywhere.

THE ROE EFFECT

After the Supreme Court eliminated Roe v. Wade in June, Republicans, including Trump, worried aloud that the decision might trigger a backlash against GOP candidates who oppose abortion rights. And there have been signs in recent months that voters — suburban women and younger voters, in particular — were energized and ready to vote for Democrats on Nov. 8.

But more than four months after the ruling, the abortion effect may be fading.

Democratic candidates have shifted their message away from abortion in recent weeks, at least somewhat, in favor of the economy, Social Security and Medicare. And some elected officials, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, warned that Democrats have relied too much on abortion rights as a galvanizing issue.

The issue is especially critical in the push for suburban women, a group that swung against Trump’s GOP in 2020 and seemed to swing back after Trump left office when the GOP shifted its focus to pandemic restrictions and the economy.

DO LATINO VOTERS DRIFT FURTHER RIGHT?

Democrats sought to improve their outreach to Latinos after underperforming with the group in 2020. But there are reasons to believe that Democrats may do even worse this year among the key voting bloc, long a pillar of the party’s coalition.

Both parties have been especially focused on the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, made up of heavily Latino communities where the Biden administration’s struggle to address problems along the U.S.-Mexico border is a central issue. The GOP believes it will win as many as three House seats in the former Democratic stronghold.

The GOP is also bullish about its standing in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, home to 1.5 million Latinos of voting age and a Democratic stronghold for the past 20 years. The GOP made significant gains there in the last presidential election.

Should Democrats lose Miami-Dade, it would virtually eliminate their path to victory in statewide contests, including presidential elections.

The Latino vote will be consequential in other states but none more so than in Arizona and Nevada, where Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the nation’s first Latina senator, is locked in a close race.

HOW DO TRUMP’S CANDIDATES PERFORM?

Trump remains a dominant force in the Republican Party, but Tuesday’s contests will test his strength among the broader electorate.

He is not on the ballot, of course, but dozens of Trump-endorsed candidates are. They include several controversial picks who beat out alternatives backed by the party’s establishment.

Should Trump’s higher-profile endorsees struggle, it would raise questions about his political strength as he weighs a 2024 presidential run that could be launched shortly after the midterms.

In Pennsylvania, Trump loyalist Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor, has struggled in the polls against Democrat Josh Shapiro. Trump’s pick for the Senate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, is locked in a close race with Democrat John Fetterman. In Arizona, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Senate contender Blake Masters, who both promoted Trump’s lies of a stolen 2020 election, are in position to win.

Other Trump loyalists to watch: Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance, North Carolina Senate contender Ted Budd, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and New York gubernatorial hopeful Lee Zeldin.

THE 2024 IMPACT

In ways big and small, the 2022 midterms will help shape the 2024 election.

A bad night for Democrats could undermine Biden’s rationale for a second term. And Trump would almost certainly seize on sweeping Republican victories as evidence of his political strength ahead of a third prospective White House bid.

Good-government advocates are particularly worried about dozens of election deniers running for state office across several presidential battlegrounds.

In Nevada, Republican Jim Marchant is running to become the secretary of state, the state’s chief elections official. Marchant is head of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a collection of Trump loyalists who falsely say the 2020 election was plagued by voter fraud.

It’s the same in Arizona and Michigan, where fellow coalition members Mark Finchem and Kristina Karamo are running for secretary of state. And in Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, another vocal election denier, would have the authority, if he wins, to appoint his own chief elections official.

Election administration aside, other statewide candidates could use a strong showing on Tuesday to position themselves for the 2024 ticket.

Lake, Arizona’s Republican candidate for governor, is already thought to be a potential Trump running mate. And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for reelection Tuesday, is also considering a 2024 presidential bid, whether Trump runs or not.

WHAT WILL WE KNOW BEFORE WE GO TO BED?

It’s possible — maybe even likely — that the outcome in several key contests may take days or even weeks to be finalized.

The reasons are many.

In Georgia, a candidate must earn at least 50% of the vote to win outright. Otherwise, the election goes to a Dec. 6 runoff. Strategists on both sides believe the state’s Senate race, in particular, may do just that.

In other states, the process of counting votes can be long and complicated, especially as voting by mail becomes more popular.

Under Arizona law, for example, all ballots must be returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day, but officials have 20 days to finalize their counts. In Nevada, counties have four days to count late-arriving mail ballots and give voters two more days to fix mail ballots that arrive in envelopes with errors or missing information.

In some swing states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, officials are not allowed to begin validating mail ballots until Election Day. Nineteen states provide a grace period to receive mail ballots as long as they were sent by Election Day. Such ballots in California can be received up to seven days later.

This could take a while.

VOTE – VOTE – VOTE!

Tony

The flood of falsehoods showed how ingrained misinformation has become inside the G.O.P., where the reflexive response of the rank and file — and even a few prominent figures — to anything that might cast a negative light on the right is to deflect with more fictional claims, creating a vicious cycle that muddies facts, shifts blame and minimizes violence.

It happened after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which was inspired by Mr. Trump’s lie of a stolen election, and in turn gave rise to more falsehoods, as Republicans and their right-wing allies tried to play down, deny or invent a different story for what happened, including groundlessly blaming the F.B.I. and antifa. Mr. Pelosi’s attacker is said to have believed some of those tales.

“This is the dynamic as it plays out,” said Brian Hughes, a professor at American University who studies radicalism and extremism. “The conspiracy theory prompts an act of violence; that act of violence needs to be disavowed, and it can only be disavowed by more conspiracy theories, which prompts more violence.”

The Justice Department moved swiftly to bring criminal charges against the suspect in the attack, David DePape, 42, who prosecutors said broke into the Pelosi home intending to kidnap Ms. Pelosi and shatter her kneecaps, and assaulted her husband with a hammer, leaving him with a cracked skull. The San Francisco district attorney said it was imperative for prosecutors to present the facts to the public, given the misinformation circulating widely about the case.

But by then, it was far too late. In a pattern that has become commonplace, a parade of Republicans — helped along by right-wing media personalities including the Fox New host Tucker Carlson, and prominent people including the newly installed Twitter owner Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man — had already abetted the viral spread of lies about the attack, distorting the account of what happened before facts could get in the way. Finding life on far-right websites and the so-called dark web, conspiracy theories and falsehoods leaped from the fringes to the mainstream.

A horrible group of individuals who use the Republican Party to prey on the minds of gullible Americans.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Reuters interviewed several former prisoners of a Russian penal colony similar to the one that Britney Griner will be spending her sentence for bringing drugs into the country. They comment that tedious manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care are typical of the conditions  conditions awaiting Griner after she lost her appeal last week. Here is an excerpt.

It’s a world familiar to Maria Alyokhina, a member of feminist art ensemble Pussy Riot who spent nearly two years as an inmate for her part in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral against President Vladimir Putin.

The first thing to understand, Alyokhina said in an interview, is that a penal colony is no ordinary prison.

“This is not a building with cells. This looks like a strange village, like a Gulag labour camp,” she said, referring to the vast penal network established by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to isolate and crush inmates.

“It actually is a labour camp because by law all the prisoners should work. The quite cynical thing about this work is that prisoners usually sew police uniforms and uniforms for the Russian army, almost without salary.”

The colony was divided between a factory area where the prisoners made garments and gloves and a “living zone” where Alyokhina said 80 women lived in one room with just three toilets and no hot water.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, could soon be transferred to a colony in the absence of a further appeal or an agreement between Washington and Moscow to swap her for a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States – a possibility that was floated months ago but has yet to materialise.

HARSH RULES

In a Pussy Riot show that has toured the world and is now playing in Britain, Alyokhina relives the memories of her time as an inmate – snowy prison yards, plank-like beds, long spells in solitary confinement and punishment for minor infringements such as an unbuttoned coat or poorly attached nametag.

She was constantly being videoed by prison guards “because I am a ‘famous provocateur’,” she added.

Russia’s prison service did not reply to a request for comment for this article.

A more recent penal colony detainee, Yelena, described a similar regime to that experienced by Alyokhina a decade ago.

Yelena, 34, served eight years in a Siberian colony after being convicted for possession of drugs. She said she was paid about 1,000 roubles ($16) a month for toiling 10-12 hours a day in a sewing workshop.

“Girls with a strong, athletic build are often given much heavier jobs. For example, they load sacks of flour for a prison bakery or unload mountains of coal,” she said.

Prisoners could face punishment for inexplicable “offences” such as placing a wristwatch on a bedside table. The ultimate sanction was solitary confinement, known as “the Vatican”.

“Just as the Vatican is a state within a state, solitary confinement is a prison within a prison,” Yelena said.

A gynaecologist paid a monthly visit to her colony, where more than 800 women were imprisoned.

“You do the math, what are the chances of being the one to get through to a doctor? Practically zero,” she said.

LANGUAGE BARRIER

For a foreigner with little or no Russian, it’s harder to navigate the system and deal with the isolation.

The brother of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine serving 16 years in a Russian penal colony on espionage charges that he denies, said he is granted a 15-minute phone call each day to his parents, cannot call other family members or friends, and has no access to email or the internet.

David Whelan said his brother must work at least eight hours a day, six days a week, on menial tasks like making buttonholes, which has caused him repetitive strain injury.

Inmates sleep in barrack-like buildings and access to many necessities, including medicine, depends on paying bribes to prison guards, he said. Conditions can depend heavily on the whims of guards, the warden or elder inmates.

Paul seems to use his military training “to get through just day to day, to figure out what battles to fight and which battles not to fight”, David Whelan said.

“His phone calls even to our parents are recorded. His letters were all translated before they went out. So you know that everything you do is being watched and you really have no sense of individuality.”

Alyokhina said receiving cards and letters from the outside world offered a rare ray of hope, and she urged people to support Griner that way.

She said they should use a machine translation and send the text in both English and Russian to get it more easily past the prison censor.

“Do not leave someone alone with this system,” she said. “It’s totally inhuman, it’s a Gulag, and when you feel yourself alone there, it’s much easier to give up.”

We all feel for Griner and what she faces!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Hill had an article earlier this week commenting  on the seven people – Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, Rick Scott – who have the most at stake in Tuesday’s midterm elections. It is an interesting piece that rings true for its speculation. I would add Mike Pence and Kamala Harris to the list. Below is the entire article.

Tony

————————————————————

The Hill

“The 7 people with most at stake in the midterms”

Niall Stanage

November 1, 2022, 7:03 PM

Next Tuesday’s midterm elections will have huge implications for President Biden, his party and the Republicans who hope to replace him in the White House in the 2024 election.

The careers of some of the most senior members of Congress will also be on the line.

Here are the seven people who will have the most at stake as the results come in.

President Biden

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the midterm results for the president.

If Democrats lose control of the House — an outcome that is highly probable — Biden will be hamstrung for the final two years of his first term, at least when it comes to domestic policy.

It’s also virtually certain that he, his administration and his family — in particular, his son Hunter Biden — will face GOP-led investigations. Whether or not actual wrongdoing is discovered, those probes could be personally embarrassing and politically arduous.

Then there’s the impact on the president’s broader political standing to consider.

If Democrats keep their House losses modest and retain control of the Senate, Biden can push forward in seeking a second term.

But if his party suffers heavy defeats, the whisperings about whether the president should step aside after a single term will grow much louder.

Even if Biden were to choose to soldier on in that scenario, the chances of a primary challenge would rise exponentially.

Former President Trump

Trump has involved himself in the midterms from the start, making a huge number of endorsements in Republican primaries. In most cases, his backing helped lift his chosen candidates to victory.

But next Tuesday brings a moment of truth as the former president and his party mull the possibility of him running again in 2024.

The fate of Trump-backed candidates in tight races will be crucial. Senate candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia and J.D. Vance in Ohio as well as two Arizona candidates — Kari Lake for governor and Blake Masters for Senate — will be the most closely watched of all.

If most or all of those candidates win, it will be a powerful rebuttal to the argument that Trump and Trumpism have limited or fading appeal.

On the other hand, if the Trump-backed candidates lose, it is bound to fuel doubts, even within the GOP, about his belligerent and polarizing approach.

Such an outcome would also prove that one of Trump’s main internal foes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was on solid ground when he fretted about “candidate quality” back in August.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)

DeSantis is widely seen as the only Republican who has a chance of defeating Trump for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

DeSantis’s backers contend that he has many of the same right-wing populist instincts as Trump but brings less of the self-defeating chaos to the table.

DeSantis’s “electability” argument is likely to grow stronger next Tuesday, when the Florida governor is expected to win reelection comfortably over his Democratic opponent, former Rep. Charlie Crist (Fla.).

In the RealClearPolitics average on Tuesday, DeSantis led Crist by 12.3 percentage points.

If the actual result is close to that margin, it will be very impressive in a state that is still a battleground, albeit a Republican-leaning one.

Trump defeated Biden in the Sunshine State by just 3 points in 2020, and DeSantis himself edged out Democrat Andrew Gillum by less than a point in his first gubernatorial race in 2018.

Conversely, an unexpectedly strong performance by Crist would put a dent in the Florida governor’s 2024 hopes.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D)

For California’s governor, next Tuesday isn’t really about his own race.

There is no serious doubt that Newsom will win a second term to lead the Golden State. Most polls give him a lead of about 20 points.

But results elsewhere could be crucial for his future ambitions.

Newsom has been the boldest Democrat in putting his name in the frame as a potential alternative to Biden in 2024.

He has run TV ads on the other side of the country, dinging DeSantis in Florida — a move that seemed mainly designed to spur buzz and media speculation.

He has been critical of the national party’s messaging and overall approach, asking rhetorically during a September appearance in Texas, “Where are we? Where are we organizing, bottom up, a compelling alternative narrative? Where are we going on the offense every single day?”

And although he contends he’s not running for president, it’s hard to find many Democrats who believe him — especially if Biden falters.

On the other hand, an unexpectedly strong night for Democrats next Tuesday could close the window of opportunity for Newsom.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

Pelosi has led House Democrats for almost 20 years, but her epic run will likely come to an end soon if the party suffers a significant defeat next Tuesday.

Pelosi is a formidable political operator, but it seems highly doubtful she, at 82, would try to hold on to her leadership position in the hope of reclaiming the Speaker’s gavel in 2024 or beyond.

Plenty of House Democrats are already restless about a leadership team that is rounded out by 83-year-old Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.) as majority leader and 82-year-old Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.) as majority whip.

All that being said, it’s perilous to ever count Pelosi out.

If Democrats were to surprise everyone by holding on to the House, or even limiting the GOP to a tiny majority, all bets would be off.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)

The Florida senator is sometimes mentioned as a potential 2024 presidential candidate, but he has a lot riding on the Senate results on Tuesday for other reasons too.

Scott is head of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

More importantly, a proposal he outlined back in February has been seized on by Democrats.

One aspect of Scott’s 11-point plan proved more politically toxic than any other — the proposal that all federal legislation would “sunset” after five years, meaning that it would lapse unless it was reauthorized.

The provision would apply to Social Security and Medicare, enormously popular programs on which seniors depend.

Democrats, including Biden and former President Obama, have hit the point hard on the campaign trail, suggesting the GOP would decimate the programs.

McConnell sprinted away from Scott’s plan almost as soon as it was announced.

If Senate Republicans have a disappointing night, some of the blame will accrue to Scott.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)

Cheney, Trump’s most ardent Republican foe on Capitol Hill, has no election to fight. She was defeated in a landslide by pro-Trump challenger Harriet Hageman in an August primary.

Cheney’s alienation from today’s GOP is all but complete — in recent weeks, she has even endorsed some Democratic candidates, including Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio) for Senate and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) for reelection to the House.

It’s a very safe bet that Cheney will be watching closely for how the most pro-Trump candidates fare — especially those who have echoed the former president’s false claims of election fraud, including Arizona’s Lake.

The GOP writ large isn’t going to come around to Cheney’s point of view anytime soon. But she would likely take some measure of satisfaction if the MAGA wing had a bad night.

If the results go the other way, it will just be one more sign that she was on the losing side in the GOP’s civil war.

Dear Commons Community,

USA Today had an article yesterday describing the “new great migration” of blacks leaving northern cities such as New York and Detroit for points south especially places like Atlanta.  It cites census figures estimating that the Black population in Georgia has roughly doubled since 1990, moving from about 1.7 million to more than 3 million in the 2020. (See data above provided by Brookings.) It also comments on how this migration is having s significant impact on the political landscape.  Below is the entire article.

Excellent reading as we head towards Election Day.

Tony

—————————————————————————————————————————-

USA Today

‘Hope is bringing us back’: Black voters are moving South, building power for Democrats

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith

November 5, 2022

Malik Rhasaan can often be found at his popular southwest Atlanta restaurant, Che Butter Jonez, where the menu and other items take a decidedly Black and Northern flair.

The borough of Queens is emblazoned on what appears to be a New York City street sign.Other artwork around the restaurant features the legendary Hip Hop group Run-DMC, also of Queens. On the menu, there’s the “Who Wants Beef, Son ?!” burger.

New York can be felt everywhere in the Georgia establishment, and yet it is hundreds of miles away and a place he hasn’t lived for decades. Rhasaan left his hometown for Atlanta because it was “the Blackest place I’ve ever been,” and it offered him career growth and other opportunities.

“With New York costs compared to Atlanta, Georgia, you could just kind of get things started a little faster,” he said. “It’s a little easier to get momentum here.”

Rhasaan, 50, is part of a wave of Black people who have left Democratic strongholds such as New York City and Detroit to move to Georgia, helping to change the political landscape of the Bible Belt that remains fertile ground for conservative politics. And going into the midterms Tuesday, the political coalition built between these new Black migrants who tend to vote blue, long-time Black Southern residents and others could help fuel progressive policies and Democratic candidates in Georgia in the future.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker are in a tight race, polls show. Democrat Stacey Abrams is in a rematch with Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after losing to him by fewer than 60,000 votes in 2018.

These contests are partially being powered by the new Great Migration, researchers said. The trend is a reversal of the Great Migration, which saw anywhere from 5 to 6.5 million Black people leave the South searching for political and economic opportunities in the North and Midwest between 1910 through 1970.

The Black population in Georgia has roughly doubled since 1990, moving from about 1.7 million to more than 3 million in the 2020 census.

New Great Migration hits Georgia midterms

Roughly half of all Black Southern migrants come from the Northeast, according to census research complied by the Brookings Institution. In contrast, fewer than two-fifths of white migrants from the Northeast chose destinations in the South.

The Black population in Atlanta alone is larger than that of African Americans in Chicago, the city that helped launch the political career of former President Barack Obama and is sometimes called by scholars the “Political Capital of Black America.”

Black voters make up a third of eligible voters in Georgia, according to the Pew Research Center. In North Carolina, they make up about 23% of the electorate.

The number of Black voting-age residents in the South has grown by 15% since 2010, while it grew by 3% among white residents, according to a Pew article from 2019.

Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Maryland are among the states that gained the highest number of Black migrants for most years since the Great Migration, as was Virginia, according to census data.

William Frey, a demographer at Brookings, said these trends will continue.

“The demography change brought by the Black migration of the second and third generation Black migrants will have a lot more to do with the Democratic vote in a place like Georgia than whatever small voting change patterns that might happen among Blacks,” he said.

Keneshia Grant, a political science professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., said Black voters can be the deciding factor when whites, for instance, remain evenly split.

“When there is a unified Black vote, it makes it the case that politicians have to speak to those voters,” she said.

Even with the demographic change, she emphasized that demographics are not results. Turnout, voting rights laws and voter engagement will also play a role in the midterms.

Heading into the 2022 midterms, Rhasaan sees fewer Warnock signs along the streets near the restaurant than he did in 2021 — a possible indicator of less engagement in politics compared to when protests following George Floyd’s death helped electrify the electorate, he fears.

Rhasaan, founder of the advocacy group Occupy the Hood, expects more statewide representation, particularly among young people, will emerge in the South because of the demographic changes that have already happened.

“I see in the next 10 years or so, more (Black) people running, more people having an influence,” he said. “That’s just a no-brainer.”

‘You can’t ignore them all’

Since the beginning of the nation’s history, the South has been the home to most Black Americans.

Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina and other localities are where nearly nine in 10 Black people were confined, forced into chattel slavery, then ushered into sharecropping and menial work, research shows.

By the 1900s, the first wave of Black migrants left the South, pulled by the prospect of less grueling Northern and Midwestern jobs and simultaneously pushed by the realities of Jim Crow segregation laws, political disenfranchisement and other discrimination.

By the second wave, which started in 1930 and ended by the 1970s, Blacks moved in more significant numbers, drawn by the prospect of jobs opened by World War I and further restrictions on immigration.

“Their migration fundamentally altered the American demographic landscape by shifting almost half of the Black population from primarily Southern and rural places to the urban North,” according to Grant’s book, “The Great Migration and the Democratic Party.”

In their new homes, their Black children could be educated. They had greater access to the ballot, drastically changing the electorate in those states, pushing civil rights issues to the fore and leading to increased Black representation.

In Detroit, for instance, the Black vote accounted for nearly 3% of the total voting-age population in 1915 and 43% by 1970, figuring in white flight and other factors, according to Grant’s book.

“There are some instances where either the number of Black people in a community or the way that community’s political system is organized makes it such that white politicians, in particular, can ignore them for a little bit longer,” said Grant, the Howard University professor. “By the time we get to 1965, 1970, the numbers in what I call the Great Migration cities — Chicago, New York, Philadelphia — their numbers are so high that you can’t ignore them.”

In 1970, the Great Migration drew to a close as deindustrialization took hold, leading to the end of Black manufacturing jobs that would never return. Moreover, segregation and discrimination were still barriers in the North.

Seeing opportunity and kinship in the South, Black people slowly moved back over the next few decades.

Democratic strategists often point out Cobb County as an example of how demographic changes have taken hold in Georgia. Just north of Atlanta, Cobb County was a former conservative stronghold that has become bluer as the population grows more diverse.

In 2020, the county’s sheriff, a Republican, was replaced by a Democrat. The same shift happened to the district attorney and the county commissioner. All three of the winners were Black.

Previously, the Sixth Congressional District, which includes parts of the county, was picked up in 2018 by Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath, a gun rights advocate and mother to Jordan Davis, who was killed in 2012 by a white man at a Florida gas station for playing loud music.

In the 1990s, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a conservative, was the representative for the district.

Tharon Johnson, a Democratic strategist in Georgia, said the appeal for Cobb is multifaceted for people of color.

“You have a well-educated workforce of individuals who are Black and Brown, who choose to go there for the improved school system and quality of life,” Johnson said.

Michael DuHaime, a Republican strategist and former Republican National Committee political director, said the trends are concerning, particularly as the nation diversifies. He said Republicans need to recruit more Black voters and candidates.

“When (former President) Donald Trump came in, I think progress that Republicans have made, you know, was pushed back a number of years and there was too much of a nativist strain within the Republican Party,” he said. “My hope is that will go away at some point.”

‘Hope is bringing us back’

For many Black migrants, Georgia represents better opportunities and a changing environment.

After being raised in Detroit and living in other cities, Willie Davis and his fiancé considered relocating to Atlanta as Georgia moved purple during the 2020 presidential elections.

He and fiancée, Anna Nettles , who is white, had been searching to find a place where they could both thrive. They wanted to be closer to his mother and sister who lived in Florida.

Now, as a real estate professional working in both Detroit and Atlanta, Davis, 36, helps relocate many people of color from Detroit to the South. He said those clients often point to the Southern weather and opportunities within their fields of work.

“In a lot of these areas like Atlanta, like Houston, I’m seeing greater opportunities for Black people,” he said. “And I’m also seeing greater opportunities for Black people and people of color in places and spaces that were not there before.”

Many new residents are more likely to be college-educated Black Americans looking for more opportunities, Brookings said in research. And so, many of the advantages may not trickle down to struggling longtime Black Atlantans, advocates say.

While the South still has high poverty rates, especially in many Black communities, it is also a place where Black people can successfully tackle the structural racism that often drives these issues, activists said.

“We’ve got blood that is still saturated in this ground for what Black folks have done to bring wealth to this country,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, an Atlanta-based advocacy group. “So if there is anywhere that literally rightfully is a space for Black prosperity … we believe it is in the South. We have paid for this space with our blood, sweat, tears.”

“Fear had us leave; hope is bringing us back,” she said.

That change can also be felt outside the confines of metro Atlanta. Today, Clinton Vicks is known for The Vicks Estate, Farm, & Fishery in Albany, Georgia. But as a young man, he left behind his hometown and moved to the North to pursue a career in the arts.

He found success. But after nearly a decade in New York, he felt the call of the South, much like his parents who moved to Detroit and back in the early 1970s.

During the pandemic, he started The Vicks Estate, Farm, & Fishery at a then-dilapidated nearly six-acre estate. He hopes to make a more significant role in his community, possibly sitting on an economic board in the historically Black side of the area.

For other African Americans looking to find their Black mecca, he said they need not search too far.

“You have something in you that you don’t have to find,” he said. “You take it with you.”

Dear Commons Community,

Major civil rights organizations including the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League are calling on advertisers to boycott Twitter.  In a statement released yesterday, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson wrote that “until [actions] are taken to make Twitter a safe space, corporations cannot in good conscience put their money behind Twitter.” Johnson affirmed that “Twitter must earn its advertisers by creating a platform that safeguards our democracy and rids itself of any account that spews hate and misinformation.” 

While organizations claimed they were having productive discussions with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk in the aftermath of his takeover of the social media platform, progress took a Sisyphean roll back down the hill yesterday. The Anti-Defamation League called for advertisers to boycott Twitter, as well, releasing a statement in conjunction with several organizations indicating that despite stating concerns regarding the proliferation of antisemitism and hate on Twitter, Musk “has taken actions that make us fear that the worst is yet to come.”

The NAACP and ADL are part of #StopToxicTwitter, a coalition of more than 60 civil society groups, which also includes Color of Change, Voto Latino, Free Press, LULAC, GlAAD, the National Hispanic Media Center, and Sleeping Giants. Members of the group met with Musk on Nov. 2 to discuss concerns over “potential changes being discussed for Twitter,” as well as an “uptick in extremist activity, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, disinformation and more.”

“Until Musk can invest in and prioritize teams that can robustly enforce Twitter’s existing community standards,” the coalition wrote in a statement, “the platform is not safe for users nor advertisers.”

The statement came hours after Musk blamed “activists” for Twitter’s plummeting advertiser revenue, accusing them of wanting to “destroy free speech in America.” 

Musk fired huge swaths of Twitter’s workforce on Thursday, following a steady trickle of dismissals among Twitter’s executives, including their chief content moderation officer. 

According to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times, Musk plans to launch a revamped version of Twitter Blue on Monday, which at $8 per month will allow users to pay for a verification badge; the documents suggest the program will not require any form of identity confirmation. 

In a statement released on Twitter, Free Press, a media advocacy group, echoed concerns that Musk’s gutting of Twitter’s staff would essentially render it “impossible for the company to uphold critical brand safeguards and content-moderation standards.”

The concern is compounded by the fact that the changes Musk is implementing are taking place days before the United States holds its midterm elections. Various candidates are running on platforms infused with election fraud conspiracies, and there are concerns that the radical transformation of Twitter could amplify misinformation surrounding breaking news events.

I agree with the position these civil rights groups are taking.  Elon Musk is ignoring Twitter’s social responsibility.

Tony