Politics
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tony Earl dead at 86
Tony Earl, a Democrat who served one term as Wisconsin’s governor in the 1980s and later bemoaned the increasing partisanship in politics, has died. He was 86.
Earl, a champion of gay rights and a staunch environmentalist, died on Thursday “peacefully surrounded by family,” his daughter Julia Earl texted The Associated Press. Earl had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke earlier this week.
“A formidable leader and public servant, trusted colleague and mentor, and a good and loyal friend, Tony was well-liked and respected by so many,” Gov. Tony Evers said in reaction to his death.
FORMER WISCONSIN GOV. TONY EARL HAS STROKE
Earl served only one term as governor, from 1983 to 1987, before being beaten by Republican Tommy Thompson who labeled him as “Tony the Taxer” because of tax hikes Earl signed in the opening months of his term. Thompson and Earl were friends for decades, despite their political rivalry.
“We both ran for Governor in 1986, but we didn’t run against each other,” Thompson said in a statement. “We often joked that I thought he should have been a Republican and he was sure I should have been a Democrat. What we both were was Wisconsinites first and foremost.”
Earl’s political career ended after he lost a Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in 1988 to Herb Kohl, but he went on to become a leading advocate for campaign and election finance reforms and a champion of environmental causes.
“He never lost his ability to be good and nice and was never pompous,” said Jay Heck, the head of lobbying group Common Cause Wisconsin and a personal friend of Earl’s for decades. “That may have been one of his political failings. He was never mean enough to go after people others thought he should go after. … He was beloved by most Democrats and got along very well with Republicans.”
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said he volunteered on Earl’s first campaign for governor when he was in high school.
“From the first day I met him, he was always the most gracious person, with the goal of cultivating a Democratic bench for the future,” Pocan said in a statement Thursday. “Politics was never personal to him, and I’ve taken that lesson to heart.”
The sour economy proved to be tough for Earl to overcome during his time as governor. The unemployment rate was 12% when he took office. And the $1 billion budget deficit led to Earl’s pushing a tax increase through the Legislature, a move that hung over his tenure and ultimately fueled his defeat in 1986 by Thompson.
“From Day One, I was ‘Tony the Taxer,’” Earl told The Associated Press in 2013.
Tony Earl, a Democrat who served as Wisconsin’s governor from 1983 until 1987, died Thursday. He was 86. (Rich Rygh/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)
Earl attempted a comeback two years after losing reelection, running as a progressive Democrat for the U.S. Senate. One of his campaign slogans was, “What this nation needs is more Peace Corps and less Star Wars,” referring to the Republican-backed missile defense system proposed at the time.
But Earl’s campaign got cut off at the knees when Kohl, fresh off of purchasing the Milwaukee Bucks, joined the race late and poured more than $7 million of his own money into winning the Democratic primary and eventually the general election.
Earl never ran for office again. Instead, he set up shop in Madison as an attorney and became an outspoken advocate for good governance reforms. In 1996, he reorganized Common Cause of Wisconsin, a group that argues for campaign finance and election reforms, and he also later served as a board member of the Joyce Foundation, a charitable organization focusing on the Great Lakes region.
For more than three decades, including his four years as governor, the silver-bearded Earl frequented the Madison restaurant Avenue Bar, located just down the street from the Capitol. There he was known to enjoy a pint or two of LaBatt beer as he talked politics with reporters, former and current politicians, old friends and neighborhood residents who stopped in for the popular Friday fish fry.
Earl, in August 2013 at the Avenue, said he had no regrets about his time in office.
“Somebody told me when I was elected, ‘You’re about to embark on a mountaintop experience.’ And it really was in many, many ways,” Earl said. “I loved the retail politics. I loved to get around the state. I enjoyed all these little festivals.”
Earl said he believed his legacy would be his advocacy for gay rights. He established, by executive order, a process for gay people to bring discrimination complaints, created a Governor’s Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues and appointed an openly gay man as his press secretary. Tammy Baldwin, who went on to become the first openly gay person ever elected to the U.S. Senate, interned in Earl’s office.
Earl also appointed the state’s first female Department of Administration secretary, Doris Hanson, and the first Black Cabinet member, Howard Fuller, as head of the Department of Employee Relations.
“Now the kinds of things I was doing are absolutely taken as a given,” Earl told AP a decade ago.
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Earl also said he believed his work on the environment, in particular joining with other Midwest governors to create the Council of Great Lakes Governors in 1983, will be a part of his lasting legacy.
Earl was born and raised in Michigan. He graduated from Michigan State University and received his law degree from the University of Chicago law school in 1961. He practiced law in the U.S. Navy from 1961 to 1965, and he was appointed assistant district attorney in Marathon County in 1965.
He worked three years as city attorney in Wausau before running for the state Assembly in 1969. He served until 1974, including four years as Democratic majority leader.
Earl ran for attorney general in 1974 but lost in the primary. He worked a year as secretary of the Department of Administration, and five years as Department of Natural Resources secretary, before running for governor in 1982.
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Earl’s candidacy was seen as a long shot, given that he was poised to face popular Republican incumbent Gov. Lee Dreyfus. But Dreyfus decided against seeking reelection after Earl had begun his campaign, clearing Earl’s path to a 15-point victory over Republican Terry Kohler.
“I was sort of an accidental governor in a way,” Earl said at the Avenue, laughing as he took a sip of his beer.
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-wisconsin-gov-tony-earl-dead-86
Politics
House Republicans accuse NIH of ‘stonewalling’ on ‘supercharged monkeypox experiment’
House Republicans are pressing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for answers after the agency funded research experiments they say could result in a “supercharged” monkeypox virus.
In a letter to acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and two subcommittee chairmen are demanding that the agency turn over documents and information regarding a government-funded experiment that reportedly involves swapping monkepox genes with a deadlier version of the virus. The lawmakers want to know whether this project was approved by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) review board tasked with oversight of research involving enhanced pathogens that could potentially cause a pandemic.
This letter is a follow-up to an October 31, 2022, letter to which Republicans say the NIH never responded. GOP lawmakers accused NIH of “stonewalling” in a press release.
“Based on the available information, it appears the project is reasonably anticipated to yield a lab-generated monkeypox virus that is 1,000 times more lethal in mice than the monkeypox virus currently circulating in humans and that transmits as efficiently as the monkeypox virus currently circulating in humans. The risk-benefit ratio indicates potentially serious risks without clear civilian practical applications,” the Republicans wrote.
This image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shows a colorized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (red) found within an infected cell (blue), cultured in the laboratory that was captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (NIAID via AP, File)
“Accordingly, this experiment would seem to involve risks reasonably anticipated to create, transfer, or use [potential pandemic pathogens] resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility or virulence in humans. Thus, under the circumstances, we are interested in learning whether this experiment was reviewed under the HHS P3CO framework used to review research proposals posing significant biosafety or biosecurity risks.”
The project leader is Dr. Bernard Moss, a veteran poxvirus researcher at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. An article in Science magazine described his efforts to learn the differences between two variants of monkeypox virus: clade 2, the West African variant that caused a global outbreak last year, and clade 1, which is believed to be deadlier and has caused outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades.
Moss’ research involves swapping the genes of the two variants, one at a time, to discover whether a specific gene in the clade 1 virus makes it deadlier. The Republicans want to know whether these lab experiments could artificially enhance the clade 2 variant.
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This 1997 image provided by the CDC during an investigation into an outbreak of monkeypox, which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, depicts the dorsal surfaces of the hands of a monkeypox case patient, who was displaying the appearance of the characteristic rash during its recuperative stage. (CDC via AP, File)
Such research, known as “gain-of-function,” is highly controversial, because it involves extracting viruses from animals to artificially engineer in a laboratory to make them more transmissible and deadly to humans. Proponents say these experiments can help scientists understand the nature of viruses and develop new treatments and vaccines. Skeptics warn that gain-of-function experiments are one lab accident away from causing another global pandemic.
Moss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led a letter to acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak demanding answers on a government-funded project involving a manipulated monkeypox virus. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Human disease associated with clade 2 or West African monkeypox virus infection is less severe and is associated with less than one percent mortality, whereas clade 1 or Congo Basin monkeypox infection has a 10 percent case fatality rate in unvaccinated persons,” the Republicans wrote. “Because of its significantly greater lethality, clade 1 or Congo Basin clade monkeypox viruses are regulated as select agents by the Federal Select Agents Program. Entities that possess, use, or transfer this agent must comply with the HHS Select Agent and Toxin Regulations unless there is an applicable exemption or exclusion.
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“Thus,” the letter continues, “under these regulations, it would appear the clade 1 monkeypox virus experiment is a restricted experiment that must be reviewed by the Federal Select Agent Program, and may be further reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s (CDC’s) Intragovernmental Select Agents and Toxins Technical Advisory Committee (ISATTAC).”
The Republicans want NIH officials and employees to testify about Moss’ project and other related matters. They gave NIH an April 13, 2023, deadline to respond to their inquiry.
Politics
DeSantis targets Biden in swing state Pennsylvania, says Democratic Party ‘dead’ in Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took multiple jabs at President Biden on Saturday during a stump speech in Pennsylvania.
DeSantis, speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference 2023, called Biden a “floundering leader” and said the president’s poor performance contributed to Republican gains.
“We are in the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican candidate for governor has ever received in the history of the state of Florida,” DeSantis told the audience. “We were able to flip Democrat counties or urban counties like Miami-Dade County. And not only did we flip it, we won it by double digits.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. (Screenshot/)
“It’s been a massive defeat for the Democratic Party,” the Florida governor said. “They did not want to see Florida go red. They threw everything but the kitchen sink to stop us. And yet, we have left the Democratic Party for dead in the state of Florida.”
The Florida governor has been walking a political tightrope for months as he refuses to officially declare his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
At the same time, he has butted heads with both the Biden administration and former President Donald Trump’s campaign — both of whom view him as a rival for the presidency.
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In speeches this year, the governor has pitched his numerous conservative policy victories in Florida as a roadmap for the entire nation.
Sources in DeSantis’ wider orbit have said that any presidential campaign launch would come in the late spring or early summer, after the end of Florida’s current legislative session.
However, the governor’s recent stops in the early-voting states of Iowa and Nevada and a trip next month to New Hampshire are sparking more 2024 speculation.
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President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touring an area impacted by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, in October 2022. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
DeSantis said earlier this week that his state “will not assist” in any extradition request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg amid what he called “questionable circumstances” while slamming the charges against Trump as “un-American” and a “weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”
The former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Politics
Biden visits University of Pennsylvania campus for the first time since classified documents controversy
President Biden on Saturday visited the campus of the University of Pennsylvania for the first time since a controversy over the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in Washington D.C.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden stopped by the university to visit Maisy Biden’s senior art show at a university gallery. It marks the first time Biden has visited the campus since the emergence in November of documents with classified markings at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.
Those documents were said to be from the Obama-Biden administration and were discovered “unexpectedly” by Biden’s personal attorneys. The emergence of the documents was followed by assessments by the FBI and Department of Justice.
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President Biden talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington Friday, March 31, 2023, before boarding Marine One. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In January, the Department of Justice announced it was investigating the discovery of the documents, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was appointing Robert Hur as special counsel.
Attorneys also found batches of documents at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. Four batches of classified materials have been found in Biden’s possession in total, dating from both his time as vice president and as a senator from Delaware.
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In February, FBI agents searched Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for three and a half hours but did not find additional classified documents. The search was carried out on Hur’s first day on the job as special counsel.
Biden has addressed the controversy, saying his team is cooperating fully with the DOJ and suggested that his staff was to blame for not finding the documents when he left office in 2017.
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President Biden delivers remarks during a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Jan. 24, 2023. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“But one of the things that happened is that what was not done well is as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that’s there,” Biden said. “But I’ll just let the investigation, you know, decide what’s going on, and we’ll see what happens.”
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House Republicans have promised to investigate Biden’s handling of classified materials, with Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., telling Fox News that “nothing that Joe Biden’s done with respect to mishandling these classified documents is normal.”
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
House Republicans accuse NIH of ‘stonewalling’ on ‘supercharged monkeypox experiment’
DeSantis targets Biden in swing state Pennsylvania, says Democratic Party ‘dead’ in Florida
Biden visits University of Pennsylvania campus for the first time since classified documents controversy
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