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DPVA List of Candidates Qualified to Appear on the Ballot for the 2025 House of Delegates Primary Elections 

By
lowkell
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1

From DPVA, it appears that the only VA House of Delegates districts without verified Democratic candidates at the moment are: HD32 (a 60% Trump district), HD35 (a 71% Trump district), HD37 (a 69% Trump district), HD42 (a 62% Trump district), HD44 (a 76% Trump district), HD45 (an 83% Trump district), HD46 (a 79% Trump district), HD59 (a 57% Trump district), HD90 (a 58% Trump district), HD100 (a 52% Trump district). However, in looking through VPAP, there are Democratic names listed on all of these ten seats except for HD35, HD37 and HD45. So presumably, in the end, Democrats will have candidates in the vast majority, if not all, of the 100 House of Delegates seats – even the ones that Trump won overwhelmingly – this fall.

As for districts with primaries, those are just these nine: HD1 (safe “blue” seat — incumbent Del. Patrick Hope vs. challengers Arjoon Srikanth and Sean Epstein); HD40 (54% Trump district; incumbent Republican Del. Joe McNamara; Democrats Donna Littlepage and Kiesha Preston); HD49 (54% Trump district; incumbent Republican Del. Danny Marshall; Democrats Gary Miller and Jasmine Lipscomb); HD57 (54% Kamala Harris district; incumbent Republican Del. David Owen; Democrats May Nivar and Andrew Schear); HD72 (61% Trump district; incumbent Republican Del. Lee Ware; Democrats Bilal Raychouni and Randolph Critzer); HD72 (49% Kamala Harris district; incumbent Republican Del. Mark Earley Jr.; Democrats Leslie Mehta and Justin Woodford); HD81 (safe “blue” seat – incumbent Del. Delores McQuinn vs. challenger Alicia Atkins); HD75 (a competitve, 52% Kamala Harris seat held by incumbent Republican Del. Carrie Coyner; Democratic challengers are Stephen Miller-Pitts, Dustin Wade, Lindsey Dougherty); HD89 (competitive, open seat which went 51% for Kamala Harris – Democrats Karen “Kacey” Carnegie and Blaizen Buckshot Bloom).

P.S. Currently, Democrats hold 51 out of 100 House of Delegates seats, down from 55 prior to the 2021 elections but up from 48 after the 2021 elections. Click here for Sam Shirazi’s detailed House of Delegates preview.

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List of Candidates Qualified to Appear on the Ballot for the House of Delegates Primary Elections

The Democratic Party of Virginia has verified that the following candidates have qualified to appear on the ballot for the House of Delegates primary elections on June 17, 2025. Please note that if there is only one candidate listed for a district, that candidate is the Democratic nominee.

House District 1

Delegate Patrick Hope

Arjoon Srikanth

Sean Epstein

House District 2

Delegate Adele McClure

House District 3

Delegate Alfonso Lopez

House District 4

Delegate Charniele Herring

House District 5

Delegate Elizabeth Bennett-Parker

House District 6

Delegate Rip Sullivan

House District 7

Delegate Karen Keys-Gamarra

House District 8

Delegate Irene Shin

House District 9

Delegate Karrie Delaney

House District 10

Delegate Dan Helmer

House District 11

Delegate David Bulova

House District 12

Delegate Holly Seibold

House District 13

Delegate Marcus Simon

House District 14

Delegate Vivian Watts

House District 15

Delegate Laura Jane Cohen

House District 16

Delegate Paul Krizek

House District 17

Delegate Mark Sickles

House District 18

Delegate Kathy Tran

House District 19

Delegate Rozia Henson

House District 20

Delegate Michelle Maldonado

House District 21

Delegate Joshua E Thomas

House District 22

Hon. Elizabeth Guzman

House District 23

Delegate Candi King

House District 24

Delegate Luke Torian

House District 25

Delegate Briana Sewell

House District 26

Delegate JJ Singh

House District 27

Delegate Atoosa Reaser

House District 28

Delegate David Reid

House District 29

Delegate Marty Martinez

House District 30

John Chilton McAuliff

House District 31

Jeremy Shane Boswell

House District 33

Catherine Elizabeth Rec

House District 34

Andrew D. Payton

House District 36

Makayla R. Venable

House District 38

Delegate Sam Rasoul

House District 39

Eric Klotz

House District 40

Donna Littlepage

Kiesha Preston

House District 41

Lily Franklin

House District 43

Mary Etta Sumner

House District 47

Yvonne M. Rorrer

House District 48

Melody Ann Cartwright

House District 49

Jasmine Lipscomb

Gary Miller

House District 50

Earnadette Powell Farrar

House District 51

Joy Powers

House District 52

Rise Marie Hayes

House District 53

Sam Soghor

House District 54

Delegate Katrina Callsen

House District 55

Delegate Amy Laufer

House District 56

Angela T. Chainer

House District 57

May Nivar

Andrew Schear

House District 58

Delegate Rodney Willett

[UPDATE: House District 59

Scott Konopasek]

House District 60

Andrew Ward

House District 61

Jacob Bennington

House District 62

Sara Ratcliffe

House District 63

Forrest J. Miller

House District 64

Stacey Annie Carroll

House District 65

Delegate Joshua Cole

House District 66

Nicole Cole

House District 67

Mario D. Haggerty

House District 68

Elaine G Walters

House District 69

Mark Downey

House District 70

Delegate Shelly Simonds

House District 71

Jessica Anderson

House District 72

Bilal Raychouni

Randolph T. Critzer Jr.

House District 73

Leslie Mehta

Justin David Woodford

House District 74

Jonas J. Eppert

House District 75

Stephen Miller-Pitts

Dustin Wade

Lindsey Dougherty

House District 76

Delegate Debra Gardner

House District 77

Delegate Michael Jones

House District 78

Delegate Betsy Carr

House District 79

Delegate Rae Cousins

House District 80

Delegate Destiny Bolling

House District 81

Delegate Delores McQuinn

Alicia Atkins

House District 82

Kimberly Pope Adams

House District 83

Mary Person

House District 84

Delegate Nadarius Clark

House District 85

Delegate Marcia Price

House District 86

Virgil Thornton Sr.

House District 87

Delegate Jeion Ward

House District 88

Speaker Don Scott

House District 89

Karen “Kacey” Carnegie

Blaizen Buckshot Bloom

House District 91

Delegate Cliff Hayes

House District 92

Delegate Bonita Anthony

House District 93

Delegate Jackie Glass

House District 94

Delegate Phil Hernandez

House District 95

Delegate Alex Askew

House District 96

Delegate Kelly Fowler

House District 97

Delegate Michael Feggans

House District 98

Cheryl Smith

House District 99

Cat Porterfield

Video: Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08) Explains to Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative Why “the president’s trade policies are…stupid and bad.”

By
lowkell
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0

This is superb by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08); well worth reading/watching.

“Ambassador Greer you have a most awful job trying to convince us and the people we represent that the president’s trade policies are wise and measured when the truth is they are stupid and bad.

The last time the US started a trade war, Smoot-Hawley tariffs, June 1930, the world DID retaliate, and we [got] the Great Depression that lasted 10 years.

I want to quickly run through a few of the ways the logic behind the Trump tariffs make no sense. You got the math wrong. According to the people whose research you cited, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a New York Times article by former Treasury Official Brent Nyman titled “The Trump White House cited my research to justify tariffs it got it all wrong.” The math error had the effect of quadrupling the tariffs Trump applied on some of our biggest trading partners.

Trump exempted some goods, notably oil, but not others, including things we simply cannot produce in the United States. Why tariff bananas? Why tariff cocoa? Why tariff coffee? We don’t have the capacity to produce these things at a scale that meets domestic demand.

Trump logic equates any trade deficit with cheating; in fact, he called it rape. But even this stupid logic didn’t help Australia or Brazil or Singapore, all countries with whom we have a trade surplus. How does Australia negotiate an end to a trade deficit that doesn’t exist? Some countries have a deficit because we import things that we want but they’re too poor to afford our exports. Perfect example is Madagascar – we buy something like 60% of our vanilla from Madagascar, but they have one of the lowest GDP per capita rates in the world and they just can’t afford many of our products. But we just hit them with the 47% tariff.

Trump is hinting that maybe if countries lower tariffs on us, he might drop tariffs on them a little bit or some or possibly. But Vietnam, knowing that Trump was coming, massively cut their tariffs to appease him ahead of his announcement last week and instead you slapped a 46% tariff on them anyway. So what are the Vietnamese supposed to do?

Trump declared a phony national emergency and imposed tariffs on Canada to punish our closest ally for quote unquote fentanyl smuggling, despite the fact that our own government says the amount of smuggling at the northern border is vanishingly small, less than 1%. How does Canada get out of a tariff imposed on them for doing something that we admit they’re not doing?

Trump is risking our economy to bring back factory jobs that pay far less than the 8 million jobs that are listed in the JOLTS report right now – 8 million jobs available in America that pay far more in fast growing sectors like healthcare, clean energy or data science. The Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik is on television raving about shifting millions of Americans to work on, and I quote, screwing in little screws to make iPhones.

You guys are blasting nearly every product from nearly every country with these tariffs. Senator Tillis yesterday called it quote a trade war on all fronts: it hurts our alliances, it hurts our economy, it hurts our ability to make and keep free trade agreements which is supposedly your job. Ambassador Greer, the world is watching you. They’re watching this hearing across the country. Global markets are in chaos. The US economy and our most important alliances are in serious danger.

I had met a couple of nights ago with a dozen ambassadors from Eastern Asia and the conclusion of the discussion was that we are creating a unipolar Asia, an Asia led by China, with America excluded. America First is America alone.

And meanwhile, you’re now serving as acting head of both the office of special counsel and the office of government ethics. These are both busy jobs in the best of times, but extremely demanding during one of the most ethically challenged presidential administrations in history. It’s absurd to think that you’re actually doing these jobs. But I think it’s fair to ask if the many hats you’re supposedly wearing are causing dangerous mistakes that damage our country in ways that’s going to be difficult to recover from.

You know, President Trump also imposed tariffs on China. China responded with tariffs on agriculture. European Union  today announced 21 billion dollars worth of new retaliatory tariffs on us. China’s announced 84% retaliatory tariffs on us. The legal pretext you said is that this is a national emergency. You refer to the state of emergency as quote the largest and persistent trade deficit that’s built up in recent years. The actual emergency is that markets are slumping, consumer confidence is crashing and financial forecasts of recession are coming pretty quickly. And the Fed is projecting that these tariffs are driving prices up. We finally got inflation down, now we’re going to do exactly the opposite. Coming to the table, I don’t know. Our trade balance has been in the negative for 50 years and yet we’ve built the strongest economy in the history of mankind. This is a terrible way to fix the way of bringing back meaningful employment to our low-income Americans. This is not the way to do it.”

Video: Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA10) Asks, “How Many Americans Will Get Sick or Die” Due to “Trump-Musk Administration’s Attacks on FDA and Public Health”

By
lowkell
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0

Great work by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA10):

Rep. Subramanyam’s Opening Remarks at Full Committee Hearing on Trump-Musk Administration’s Attacks on FDA and Public Health
Washington, D.C. (April 9, 2025)—Below is Rep. Suhas Subramanyam’s opening statement, as prepared for delivery, at today’s Full Committee hearing on the Trump Administration’s purge of thousands of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) workers, endangering the health and safety of the American people.

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Click here to watch the video.

Opening Statement
Ranking Member Suhas Subramanyam
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
“Restoring Trust in FDA: Rooting Out Illicit Products”
April 9, 2025

Today’s hearing comes at a critical moment for public health and safety.  All Americans should be able to trust that our government is working to ensure their food and medicine will be safe and affordable.

Over the past two months, however, the Trump Administration has purged thousands of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) workers, putting this essential mission and American lives at risk.

Last week, the Administration purged 10,000 people at the Department, including 3,500 FDA employees.  This was on top of a purge of approximately 1,000 FDA workers in February.

Secretary Kennedy subsequently admitted that 20% of last week’s purges should not have happened.  He tried to brush it off, saying, “We’ll make mistakes.”  But how long will it take them to realize the full extent of the mistakes they’ve made?  How long will it take for them to try—and very possibly fail—to undo those mistakes?  And how many Americans will get sick or die in that time?

The FDA is supposed to make sure that our children have the vaccines they need to survive outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles, which has killed at least two children in the U.S. since February and sickened more Americans in two months than in the entirety of 2024.

The FDA is supposed to protect us from counterfeit drugs and contaminated infant formula, which are serious, bipartisan concerns.  But how is the agency supposed to stop dangerous, illicit products from entering American homes and threatening American lives when underfunded food and drug inspection teams are being cut even more?  170 employees from FDA’s Office of Inspections and Investigations were reportedly let go last week.

And let me tell you about some of the expertise we are losing because of this Administration’s actions:  

  • They fired the people responsible for regulating e-cigarettes and ensuring that predatory companies cannot market vapes to children.
  • They fired people responsible for monitoring drugs for side effects and updating warning labels.
  • They have fired the scientists monitoring bird flu and taking steps to prevent it from killing people.
  • They fired the scientists with expertise in fighting heavy metals, toxins, and additives in our food supply have been fired.
  • And they fired the people who monitor prescription drug shortages and ensure that Americans have access to affordable prescription medications

How is any of this making America healthier?  We all know the answer to that question: it’s not, and people are going to die. 

As a dad, I’m especially concerned by the Administration undoing the progress we’ve made to protect babies from contaminated infant formula and formula shortages.  And we should all be concerned by the risk posed by contaminated meat and produce.

This chaos will keep us in the dark about looming shortages of essential drugs like antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs, and it will leave people no choice but to pay for pricey brand-name drugs because there are no FDA employees to approve generic versions.  In the name of efficiency, this administration even fired employees who were critical of approving new medications, meaning Americans will have to wait longer for new treatments – if they get them at all.

One of those Americans is my constituent, a former teacher who spent 35 years of her life working at the Department of Education.  She has Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, a terminal lung condition that took her aunt’s life and is slowly taking hers.  It’s a rare disease that doesn’t get much funding, but she had hope.

A drug to slow down the disease received the FDA’s Breakthrough Therapy Designation in 2022, and trials showed it might actually stop the progression of her disease.  Her doctor anticipated FDA approval this year.  But the FDA’s funding cuts and firing of researchers and staff who sit on the approval committees has made this impossible.  This Administration is stripping both hope and a life-saving medication out of the hands of Americans who need it most.

The FDA can and must do more for Americans.  Addressing our country’s chronic disease epidemic, ensuring our children are set up to live long and healthy lives, getting more life-saving medications to those who need them, and ensuring the food on our shelves is safe and wholesome should be at the top of the to-do list.  But rather than making it better and more efficient, the FDA is left ransacked and reeling from the chaos and destruction of the Trump Administration.  It’s unclear whether the agency can even perform some of its most basic functions.  

I don’t know how much clearer I can be; these health cuts will kill people.  They will make us less safe and less healthy. 

I was not elected to this office to watch the people we serve suffer from diseases awaiting new treatments while this administration dismantles the offices that offer hope.  It’s the responsibility of this Committee to conduct meaningful oversight.  If we are not talking about this and doing something about it, then we are not doing our jobs.

I yield back.  

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NEW AUDIO: Behind Closed Doors, Winsome Earle-Sears Calls Trump’s Tariffs “Good,” “To Our Benefit”; Also Says “I think Trump is crazy like a fox”

By
lowkell
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3

This is like Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” comments on steroids! (h/t to American Bridge and the Democratic Party of Virginia for the audio “scoop”)

NEW AUDIO: Behind Closed Doors, Winsome Earle-Sears Calls Trump’s Tariffs “Good” 

Winsome Earle-Sears: “I think that’s good”

VIRGINIA – As Donald Trump’s tariffs go into effect, raising prices for Virginians, new audio has exposed Winsome Earle-Sears saying she thinks this massive tax on Virginia families and businesses is “good” and a “benefit.”

Sears’ comments from behind closed doors come after her campaign refused to answer questions from the media about Trump’s reckless tariffs.

LISTEN HERE:
 
Winsome Earle-Sears: Now somebody asked me about the tariffs. Folks, you know what I think about that? So I understand that tariffs can hurt. But I think Trump is crazy like a fox. I mean, have you noticed the minute that he says tariffs suddenly — as my grandmother would say — these countries shaped up and started flying right? Did you notice that? Yes. Yes. […] And I think that’s good! And it’s to our benefit after all.

Video: At Meeting of the VA House Emergency Committee on Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions, Fairfax Chair Jeff McKay Declares, “What we’re facing here is far worse than Covid”

By
lowkell
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0

Thanks to Cindy Cunningham for this excellent summary of yesterday’s meeting in Alexandria. of the VA House Emergency Committee on Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions. Also, see below for video.

The bottom line: what Trump, Musk, “DOGE,” etc. are doing is disastrous on multiple fronts, including to the Virginia economy. As Cindy Cunningham summarizes:

“Civilian federal job losses are already approaching 10%. This is expected to reduce Virginia’s 2025 GDP by $7.4 billion, causing a loss of $250 million in tax revenue to Virginia’s budget. This is JUST the losses due to civilian federal jobs, not military cuts nor contracts.”

And as Fairfax County Board Chair Jeff McKay starkly puts it:

“I mention a lot of these things that happened during COVID because I’m often asked this question. I tell people what we’re facing here is far worse than Covid. Covid was an international pandemic that was affecting everyone. This is something that is acutely affecting Virginia and Northern Virginia. We got through COVID because we had a lot of federal support.  We will get no federal support with this; in fact, it is federal actions that are causing these challenges. And so that’s why we take this as a much more larger emergency than even the health pandemic.”
Welcome to the Trump economic “golden age” that (pathological liar) Glenn Youngkin promised back on Inauguration day? Uhhhh…yeah, no, that ain’t happening…

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Yesterday I attended a meeting of the VA House Emergency Committee on Federal Resources. A few things we learned:

* Civilian federal job losses are already approaching 10%. This is expected to reduce Virginia’s 2025 GDP by $7.4 billion, causing a loss of $250 million in tax revenue to Virginia’s budget. This is JUST the losses due to civilian federal jobs, not military cuts nor contracts.
* Despite Youngkin and Sears’ claims that this is no big deal, and that there are plenty of jobs for these workers to take in Virginia, the federal workforce has unique skills, education, and experience, and are commensurately paid more than the non-federal workforce.
* Fairfax Chair Jeff McKay pointed out that this is a more significant loss to Northern Virginia than COVID, which hit everywhere the same but where there was lots of federal assistance to localities.
* Additional costs that Virginia will face include health care (as workers lose their insurance), child care (many were in federal programs), mental health care (imagine being told the work you’ve dedicated decades to is worthless), plus all the services the federal government formerly was able to provide, like water testing, communicable disease data tracking, food safety, etc.

If you would like to give written testimony, tell your personal story, ask the legislature for something the state government can provide to help you in these difficult times, you can leave it here.

Wednesday News: “Global Markets Sink as U.S. Implements Punishing Tariffs”; “Trump Insists ‘I Know What I’m Doing’ as Tariffs Spark Chaos”; “Due Process for Me, Not for Thee”; “IRS chief to quit over deal to share data with immigration authorities”

By
lowkell
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17

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, April 9.

Video: At Pro-Labor Event, Abigail Spanberger Vows to “Always Have Workers’ Backs”; Speaker Don Scott Says “our state motto is sic semper tyrannis, thus always to tyrants. We don’t like kings in Virginia. We stand up to them, we fight back!”

By
lowkell
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0

See below for some photos from Abigail Spanberger’s event today in Henrico County, at which she promised that, if elected governor, to “sign legislation increasing the minimum wage,” and also “signaled support for proposals to expand paid family leave and strengthen collective bargaining rights.” Also, check out the video of VA Speaker Don Scott firing up the crowd and – obviously referring to Donald Trump – pushing back hard against “tyrants” and “kings.” Great stuff!

“We’re ready to lift wages. We’re ready to defend workers’ rights. We’re ready to stand up to these bullies and these billionaires who think they can come in here and run roughshod over Virginians. You know our state motto is sic semper tyrannis, thus always to tyrants. We don’t like kings in Virginia. We stand up to them, we fight back. So I need y’all to understand something: if we pass a minimum wage bill next year – no, WHEN we pass it, WHEN we pass it…I need y’all to say the name of the governor who’s going to sign that bill, say it with me [crowd: Abigail Spanberger!]. When we pass collective bargaining for state workers next year, who’s going to sign that bill [crowd: Abigail Spanberger!]? And when we win this next election, who’s going to be sworn in as the next governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia [crowd: Abigail Spanberger!]?”

Sounds like a plan – let’s all help make it so!

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX30) Launch Investigation Into Elon Musk’s Obvious Conflicts of Interest at Department of Commerce 

By
Blue Virginia
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0

Good stuff by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11), Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; and Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Vice Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform…

Vice Ranking Member Crockett and Ranking Member Connolly Launch Investigation Into Elon Musk’s Obvious Conflicts of Interest at Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C. (April 8, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Vice Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Acting General Counsel John K. Guenther at the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) requesting documents, information, and answers as to how Commerce is ensuring Elon Musk is not exploiting Commerce to enrich himself in violation of federal ethics rules.  As Elon Musk and his DOGE lackeys’ gut and terminate Americans’ vital programs and services under the guise of “efficiency,” he has conveniently ignored the potential waste, fraud, and abuse stemming from his own companies’ lucrative contracts worth billions in taxpayer dollars.  Ethics laws prevent political appointees, including SGEs, from taking part in any matter that might impact their personal finances.  Yet, as of February 2025, Mr. Musk and his companies have received a combined total of at least $38 billion in contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits from the federal government and state governments. In fact, Mr. Musk’s businesses have been more reliant on government funds than many of his competitors.

“At Commerce, where Mr. Musk’s companies have received significant financial benefits and have the potential to receive vast amounts of new business, his defiance of recusal laws and control of Commerce’s operations directly benefit his businesses,” wrote the Members. “The known conflicts of interest presented by this arrangement are illegal and must be addressed immediately.”

Financial Benefits to Musk’s Companies from Commerce include:

  • Mr. Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX, has benefitted from at least $3.6 million in total taxpayer-funded benefits from Commerce alone since 2003.  For example, SpaceX has received $1.9 million in federal contracts from the Department in the past decade.
  • Commerce has reportedly changed the rules of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program meant to expand internet access around the country and particularly in rural areas.  Starlink, which was previously expected to get roughly $4 billion under this program, could now receive as much as $20 billion under the new rules.
  • Disturbingly, Musk can expect to benefit from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s unlawful encouragement of Fox News viewers to “buy Tesla” stock.  “I think, if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick told viewers.

Michael Grimes, a Wall Street executive who has worked with Mr. Musk for many years and assisted Mr. Musks’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, is now a senior adviser at Commerce. Grimes will reportedly lead a U.S. sovereign wealth fund that will be created by the Trump Administration and could direct billions of dollars to Mr. Musk’s companies.

In addition, as of March 2025, Mr. Musk’s DOGE operation had terminated approximately 2,000 employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is housed in the Department of Commerce, leading former NOAA employees to sound the alarm on Mr. Musk’s efforts to gut NOAA to privatize space and satellite operations and steer new contracts to SpaceX and Starlink.

President Trump illegally fired Commerce’s inspector general, the agency’s independent watchdog responsible for conducting oversight of any potential waste, fraud, abuse, or corruption associated with Mr. Musk.

In order to ensure that Commerce is complying with federal ethics and other relevant laws with respect to Elon Musk, Vice Ranking Member Crockett and Ranking Member Connolly requested that Commerce provide information, documents, and answers by April 22, 2025.

Click here to read the letter to Commerce Acting General Counsel John K. Guenther.

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Senators Tim Kaine, Ron Wyden and Chuck Schumer Demand US House Vote on Senate-Passed Tariff Legislation Ending Trade War with Canada

By
lowkell
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1

From Sen. Tim Kaine’s office – good work, even if it’s unlikely that Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson will take up this legislation, or even if he does, that there’s any chance in hell that Donald Trump would sign it into law…

KAINE, SCHUMER, AND WYDEN DEMAND HOUSE VOTE ON SENATE-PASSED TARIFF LEGISLATION ENDING TRADE WAR WITH CANADA

Kaine’s legislation passed the Senate by a bipartisan 51-48 vote last week

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson demanding that he schedule a vote in the House of Representatives on Senate Joint Resolution 37, legislation led by Kaine to reverse President Trump’s tariffs on Canada, which amount to a 25 percent tax on imported goods. S.J. Res. 37 passed in the Senate last week by a 51-48 vote.

“Plain and simple, the Trump Trade War is a Trump Tax on families, raising their costs by nearly $4,000 per year and devastating small businesses, forcing them to raise prices or lay off staff. It is a dangerous, foolish exercise that is wreaking havoc on the American economy and could tee up a recession,” wrote the senators.

The senators continued, “Now that the Senate has weighed in, members of the House should have the opportunity to vote on whether to continue President Trump’s wrongheaded tariffs on Canada.”

“Canada is the United States’ second largest trading partner and longtime ally,” the senators wrote. “This absurd and dangerous trade war has needlessly fractured the relationship between our two countries, thrown integrated manufacturing supply chains into disarray, and raised costs for American families and small businesses. The Senate has acted. The House should follow and schedule a vote without delay.”

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Speaker Johnson:

We call on you to move without delay to schedule a vote in the House of Representatives on Senate Joint Resolution 37, which would terminate President Trump’s foolish and misguided trade war with our ally, Canada.

Plain and simple, the Trump Trade War is a Trump Tax on families, raising their costs by nearly $4,000 per year and devastating small businesses, forcing them to raise prices or lay off staff. It is a dangerous, foolish exercise that is wreaking havoc on the American economy and could tee up a recession. If the president doesn’t back off, Congress must take action – the Senate has already taken action to provide relief from tariffs on Canada, and the House should follow immediately.

On February 2, President Trump declared a so-called emergency with regard to the flow of illicit drugs from Canada, despite evidence from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that less 0.2 percent of fentanyl comes from our northern ally. 

This was clearly a pretext to abuse the emergency authorities under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to start a trade war with one of our closest allies and biggest trading partners. Situations like this are exactly why Congress created a privileged process to rescind emergencies under IEEPA. 

Last week, the Senate exercised this authority and voted on a bipartisan basis to rescind the president’s emergency and end this ridiculous trade war. The House of Representatives already sidestepped this responsibility once in March, taking extraordinary steps to avoid the question of the legitimacy of the president’s declared emergency. Now that the Senate has weighed in, members of the House should have the opportunity to vote on whether to continue President Trump’s wrongheaded tariffs on Canada.

Canada is the United States’ second largest trading partner and longtime ally. This absurd and dangerous trade war has needlessly fractured the relationship between our two countries, thrown integrated manufacturing supply chains into disarray, and raised costs for American families and small businesses. 

The Senate has acted. The House should follow and schedule a vote without delay.

 

Sincerely,

In 2021, the Virginia Political Media Badly Failed Us (and Helped Give Us Glenn Youngkin as Governor). In 2025, It’s Looking Like They’re Gearing Up to Fail Us Again.

By
lowkell
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2

While perusing this morning’s news, the conclusion I drew is that, apparently, all we’re going to get on the 2025 Virginia governor’s race from the media is: a) identity politics (did you know that two women are running? well, if you somehow didn’t know that, don’t worry, because they’re going to tell you over and over and over and over again!); b) “horse race” (who’s up? who’s down? how much money did they raise?). But good luck, for instance, finding out that Winsome Earle-Sears is a right wingnut, or really anything substantive about ANY of the candidates on the issues, in terms of their qualifications for the job, etc.

Just this morning, for instance, there were several articles along these lines, and it was hard to decide which was the least helpful/informative.  But if I have to pick one, I’ve gotta go with this article by Bob Lewis in the Virginia Mercury, which literally concludes as follows:

“Now, a woman will get that chance. I take comfort knowing that there will be a Governor Spanberger or a Governor Earle-Sears.

Either way, her time has come.”

So…seriously, he takes “comfort” in the thought of having THIS PERSON as our next governor!

  • “Sears claimed that after a woman becomes pregnant the baby is not her body, saying, “she’s got her own body” and “the blood running through the veins of the baby don’t belong to her, it’s not her blood.”
  • Sears has tried to base her staunch anti-choice extremism on the widely debunked conspiracy theory that abortion clinics “sell baby parts.”
  • Sears has supported extreme abortion bans — similar to the Texas law banning abortion as early as six weeks.
  • Sears is a longtime opponent of LGBTQ+ rights, previously running on her proud opposition to marriage equality.
  • Sears campaigned with and celebrated the endorsement of E.W. Jackson, a staunch anti-LGBTQ+ bishop who has a long history of spewing hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ+ Americans.
  • Sears has long supported stripping funding from public schools to funnel into unaccountable private and charter schools, leading the most recent legislative push to do so.”

And that’s just a very VERY short list of Sears’ lunacy and extremism. But you’ll never hear a word about any of that, apparently, in Virginia’s political media.

Another exampe: this article – also in the Virginia Mercury – is 100% “horse race,” with an absurd/false/over-the-top statement by Sears (“The threat of radical change that would turn our commonwealth in the wrong direction is real and demands we fight back directly and aggressively.”) presented uncritically/stenographically. Wonderful.

Oh, and if you read this article on WAMU’s website, you’ll learn that Sears “would be the first woman and first immigrant to be Virginia governor and the first Black woman governor in American history,” that she “touts endorsements from 11 state legislators and nearly 60 Virginia sheriffs,” and that “her campaign website does not list any policy priorities.” Other than that…nada. Super helpful, huh? Really gets into the candidates positions on the issues, what voters should be focused on, etc? Not!

Yet another example: this very short piece, by Michael Pope over at WVTF, which mostly features this quote about Winsome Sears:

“She is definitely dealing with the duality of her identity being both Black and being a woman,” says Jatia Wrighten at Virginia Commonwealth University. “She will deal with both sexism and racism, and so besides having to deal with her own party and maybe them not seeing her as a loyalist, she’s going to be dealing with not only her ideology, but also her identity.”

Again…ok, but where’s the substance about Sears’ bats***-crazy, extreme views on almost every topic? Nowhere to be found in that article, or really in ANY article in the Virginia political media this morning (that includes the ostensibly pro-Democratic “Virginia Dogwood” – check this article out, and notice the same pattern as described above).

Oh, and if you were thinking this was just the media failing to seriously cover the governor’s race, there’s also this article in the RTD about the Lt. Governor’s race, which has ZERO information on the Republican candidates’ positions on the issues (e.g., John Reid is hard right/MAGA all the way, but all you really gather from the Virginia “mainstream media” is that he was a “radio host,” the son of a delegate, previously worked for George Allen and Ronald Reagan, and “would be the first openly gay candidate elected to a statewide office in Virginia”)…

Anyway, the bottom line is that for whatever reasons, the Virginia political media – and the media in general – shy away from telling their readers clearly, or at all, how extreme Republican candidates are these days. They did it with Trump in 2016, Trump again in 2020, Youngkin in 2021, Trump again in 2024, and now they’re doing it in the Virginia 2025 elections. And, apparently, that’s all they’re ever going to do – it’s simply “how they roll,” as the saying goes. Unfortunately, by “rolling” in this way – “horse race,” “whitewashing,” “sanewashing,” “both sidesism”/false equivalence, etc. – they’re doing an enormous disservice to the public and to our democracy, while making a mockery of what journalism is supposed to actually be about. And apparently they DO NOT CARE.

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