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Arizona Certifies 2022 Election Despite Republican Complaints

Arizona’s top officials certified the midterm election results Monday, formalizing victories for Democrats over Republicans who falsely claimed the 2020 election was rigged.

The certification opens a five-day window for formal election challenges. Republican Kari Lake, who lost the race for governor, is expected to file a lawsuit after weeks of criticizing the administration of the election.

Election results have largely been certified without issue around the country, but Arizona was an exception. Several Republican-controlled counties delayed their certification despite no evidence of problems with the vote count. Cochise County in southeastern Arizona blew past the deadline last week, forcing a judge to intervene on Friday and order the county supervisors to certify the election by the end of the day.

“Arizona had a successful election,” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said before signing the certification. “But too often throughout the process, powerful voices proliferated misinformation that threatened to disenfranchise voters.”

The statewide certification, known as a canvass, was signed by Hobbs, Republican Governor Doug Ducey, Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, a Ducey appointee.

When the same group certified the 2020 election, Ducey silenced a call from then-President Donald Trump, who was at the time in a frenetic push to persuade Republican allies to go along with his attempts to overturn the election he lost.

“This is a responsibility I do not take lightly,” Ducey said. “It’s one that recognizes the votes cast by the citizens of our great state.”

Republicans have complained for weeks about Hobbs’ role in certifying her own victory over Lake in the race for governor, though it is typical for election officials to maintain their position while running for higher office. Lake and her allies have focused on problems with ballot printers that produced about 17,000 ballots that could not be tabulated on site and had to be counted at the elections department headquarters.

Lines backed up in some polling places, fueling Republican suspicions that some supporters were unable to cast a ballot, though there’s no evidence it affected the outcome. County officials say everyone was able to vote and all legal ballots were counted.

Hobbs planned to immediately petition the Maricopa County Superior Court to begin an automatic statewide recount required by law in three races decided by less than half a percentage point. The race for attorney general was one of the closest contests in state history, with Democrat Kris Mayes leading Republican Abe Hamadeh by just 510 votes out of 2.5 million cast.

The races for superintendent of public instruction and a state legislative seat in the Phoenix suburbs will also be recounted, but the margins are much larger.

Once a Democratic stronghold, Arizona’s top races went resoundingly for Democrats after Republicans nominated a slate of candidates backed by Trump who focused on supporting his false claims about the 2020 election. In addition to Hobbs and Mayes, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly was reelected and Democrat Adrian Fontes won the race for attorney general.
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Surprising Words & Phrases Invented by US Presidents  

When America’s leaders can’t think of the perfect word for certain situations, they sometimes make one up. And those new words often go down in history.

From “lunatic fringe” (Teddy Roosevelt) and “iffy” (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

to “snowmageddon” (Barack Obama) and “bigly” (Donald Trump), the terms coined by U.S. presidents are as unique as the American experience.

“We’re really creating our own institutions through language,” says Paul Dickson, author of “Words from the White House: Words and Phrases Coined or Popularized by America’s Presidents.” “So, when John Quincy Adams creates the word ‘gag rule,’ or somebody creates another word that actually fits into what we do, once you have a word for it, then it becomes a reality.”

Thomas Jefferson is said to have created more than a hundred words, including “authentication” [act of proving the accuracy or legitimacy of something] and “anglomania” [an excessive fondness for all things English].

Abraham Lincoln coined the words “relocate” and “relocation,” the term “a house divided” in reference to the Civil War, and according to The New York Times,” the word “cool” [nice, good].

Teddy Roosevelt added several memorable words and phrases to American English.

“Teddy Roosevelt creates this huge body of slang,” Dickson says. “‘Pack rat,’ ‘mollycoddle,’ ‘frazzle,’ ‘malefactors of great wealth,’ ‘loose cannon,’ ‘lunatic fringe,’ ‘bully pulpit,’ ‘pussyfooter,’ and on and on.”

Woodrow Wilson is believed to have been the first to use the slogan “America First” in 1915. He was also criticized for being the first president to drop “the” before “Congress.” Wilson’s successor, Warren Harding, gets credit for coming up with the term “Founding Fathers” to describe the framers of the Constitution. Harding also originated the words “normalcy” and “bloviate” [to speak bombastically or grandiosely].

Before Calvin Coolidge, no political campaigner had ever branded himself as a “law- and-order” candidate. Harry Truman devised the phrase “do-nothing Congress” and the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Lyndon Johnson was the first to call handshakes “pressing the flesh.”

The new words filled in a lot of blanks as when, in 1934, the sitting president decided his annual report to Congress needed a more fitting name.

“It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who changed the name of the ‘Report to Congress’ to the ‘State of the Union,’ and that was a much better description of what was going on than a ‘Report to Congress,’” Dickson says.

Inventing new words drew the ire of critics who felt presidents should stick to proper English, like when FDR used “iffy” for the first time.

“He said, ‘Well, it’s pretty iffy as to where the Supreme Court stands on this,’ and that made headlines: ‘Roosevelt created the word ‘iffy’!’” Dickson says.

The Oxford English dictionary also cites FDR as being the first to use the word “cheerleader” [a person who leads the cheering at a sporting or special event].

wight D. Eisenhower is admired for conceiving the term, “military-industrial complex” in 1961, to warn against the powerful alliance of the military, government and private corporations. But he was slammed for uttering another word in a speech.

“He used the word ‘finalize’ — taking ‘final’ and turning it into a verb — and there was this huge outcry. There were editorials in the major papers that the president shouldn’t use a word like finalize. It wasn’t proper English,” Dickson says.

Critics called the word nonexistent,” “hideous,” “atrocious” and “meaningless.”

Dickson says necessity is the reason presidents continue to devise new words.

“They come up when they’re needed … to deal with the times, to deal with what was going on, whether it be the Great Depression or whether it be World War II, or whether it’s the change in fashion or politics,” he says. “President [Richard] Nixon coming up with the word ‘solid majority,’ or President Obama talking about certain projects which were ‘shovel-ready,’ that had never been heard before, that meant that they could immediately start working on the project.”

Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, is remembered for calling himself the “decider” [person who makes the final call] and using the word “misunderestimate” [to seriously underestimate.]

While the presidential expressions that have entered the American lexicon are wildly diverse, there might be one quality the presidents share.

“A number of them showed great cleverness. That’s what they have in common. They were not just smart. They were clever. They were witty,” Dickson says. “They often have to think on their feet, and when they think on their feet, sometimes there isn’t an existing word to say what they mean. And they just make one up.”
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Fighting Words: Founding Fathers Irked England by Inventing American English

Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, coined the words “electioneering” and “indecipherable.” John Adams (No. 2) came up with “caucus.” James Madison (No. 4) was the first to use “squatter” when referring to someone who occupies a property or territory they don’t own.

As they set out to build a new nation, America’s Founding Fathers were determined to give the fledgling republic its own identity and culture by making up new words that were unique to the American experience.

“It was thought by many of the early presidents — Jefferson, Adams, [George] Washington and others — that they were doing something important,” says Paul Dickson, author of “Words from the White House: Words and Phrases Coined or Popularized by America’s Presidents.” “It was this belief that we were separating ourselves from the British.”

The practice of making up new words outraged British purists, some of whom viewed Americans as people without a language who stole England’s mother tongue.

“Some of the first words that the British really went crazy over were the words ‘congressional’ and ‘presidential.’ They said they were barbarous,” Dickson says. “But those were words we needed. George Washington, one of the words he created — and again, this helped frame who we were — he talked about his ‘administration.’ That word never existed in terms of a noun to describe the body of people that ruled with you in your Cabinet.”

In some cases, the presidents didn’t come up with the words and phrases. Some were created by speechwriters, aides and other acquaintances and then popularized by the president. For example, John Jay, Washington’s secretary for foreign affairs, is said to have coined “Americanize.”

A key nonpresidential figure who helped codify these new Americanisms was Noah Webster, who published his first dictionary in 1806. Webster fought in the Revolutionary War, which secured America’s independence from England. While wandering through a New York military camp filled with war veterans, he saw the need for a unique American language.

“He was hearing voices of Indigenous people. He was hearing Irish brogues. He was hearing all sorts of different kinds of language and different kinds of speaking, and heavily accented,” Dickson says. “And he realized that this country is going to be a big mix of different people, different interests, and it needed a new language. It needed something called the ‘American language,’ which is a term he created. … Noah Webster actually said that creating a new language was an act of defiance.”

While future presidents also coined new words, Dickson says the founders were particularly prolific. Jefferson alone is credited for coming up with more than 100 words, including “belittle,” “pedicure,” “monotonously” and “ottoman” [footstool]. Fittingly, he also invented the verb “neologize,” which is the practice of coining new words or expressions.

Instead of saying “within doors,” Washington created the word “indoors.” The first president also came up with “average” and “New Yorker.”

Adams borrowed from the classic Spanish novel, “Don Quixote” to create the adjective “quixotic” [unrealistic schemes]. The first recorded uses of “hustle” [to move rapidly] and “lengthy” [long, protracted] came from Adams’ journal entries.

Although the earliest American leaders started the practice, neologizing eventually became something of a presidential tradition.

“There were certain presidents that have a knack for this, and some of it was conscious. Some of it was sort-of semi-conscious,” Dickson says. “It became, it was, sort of, the American way.”

Despite inventing numerous memorable words and phrases, America’s early leaders fell short of coining a term to describe themselves — the extraordinary group of men who founded the United States and created the framework for its government. That didn’t happen until a century later.

In the 1920s, President Warren Harding dubbed them the “Founding Fathers” and in doing so, created one of the most memorable and iconic Americanisms of them all.
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Runoff Election to Decide Final Balance of Power in US Senate

Democrats control the U.S. Senate by a slim margin. But the final balance of power will be decided in the state of Georgia on December 6, when voters choose between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
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Senate Moves to Avert Rail Strike Amid Dire Warnings

The Senate moved quickly Thursday to avert a rail strike that the Biden administration and business leaders warned would have had devastating consequences for the nation’s economy. 

The Senate passed a bill to bind rail companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached between the rail companies and union leaders in September. That settlement had been rejected by some of the 12 unions involved, creating the possibility of a strike beginning December 9. 

The Senate vote was 80-15. It came one day after the House voted to impose the agreement. The measure now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature. 

“I’m very glad that the two sides got together to avoid a shutdown, which would have been devastating for the American people, to the American economy and so many workers across the country,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. 

Schumer spoke as Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg emphasized to Democratic senators that rail companies would begin shutting down operations well before a potential strike would begin. The administration wanted the bill on Biden’s desk by the weekend. 

Shortly before Thursday’s votes, Biden — who had urged Congress to intervene earlier this week — defended the contract that four of the unions had rejected, noting the wage increases it contains. 

“I negotiated a contract no one else could negotiate,” Biden said at a news briefing with French President Emmanuel Macron. “What was negotiated was so much better than anything they ever had.” 

Critics say the contract that did not receive backing from enough union members lacked sufficient levels of paid leave for rail workers. Biden said he wants paid leave for “everybody” so that it wouldn’t have to be negotiated in employment contracts, but Republican lawmakers have blocked measures to require time off work for medical and family reasons. The U.S. president said that Congress should now impose the contract to avoid a strike that Biden said could cause 750,000 job losses and a recession. 

Railways say that halting rail service would cause a devastating $2 billion-per-day hit to the economy. A freight rail strike also would have a big potential impact on passenger rail, with Amtrak and many commuter railroads relying on tracks owned by the freight railroads. 

The rail companies and 12 unions have been engaged in high-stakes negotiations. The Biden administration helped broker deals between the railroads and union leaders in September, but four of the unions rejected the deals. Eight others approved five-year deals and are getting back pay for their workers for the 24% raises that are retroactive to 2020. 

On Monday, with a December 9 strike looming, Biden called on Congress to impose the tentative agreement reached in September. Congress has the authority to do so and has enacted legislation in the past to delay or prohibit railway and airline strikes. But most lawmakers would prefer the parties work out their differences on their own. 

The intervention was particularly difficult for Democratic lawmakers who traditionally align themselves with the politically powerful labor unions that criticized Biden’s move to intervene in the contract dispute and block a strike. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded to that concern by holding a second vote Wednesday on a bill that would add seven days of paid sick leave per year for rail workers covered under the agreement. The call for paid sick leave was a major sticking point in the talks along with other quality-of-life concerns. The railroads say the unions have agreed in negotiations over the decades to forgo paid sick time in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits. 

The unions maintain that railroads can easily afford to add paid sick time when they are recording record profits. Several of the big railroads involved in these contract talks reported more than $1 billion profit in the third quarter. 

The House passed the legislation enacting September’s labor agreement with broad bipartisan support. A second measure adding seven paid sick days for rail workers passed on a mostly party-line vote in the House, but it fell eight votes short of a 60-vote threshold needed for passage in the Senate. 

 
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Trump Documents Probe: Court Halts Mar-a-Lago Special Master Review

A unanimous federal appeals court on Thursday ended an independent review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, removing a hurdle the Justice Department said had delayed its criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret government information.

The decision by the three-judge panel represents a significant win for federal prosecutors, clearing the way for them to use as part of their investigation the entire tranche of documents seized during an August 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. It also amounts to a sharp repudiation of arguments by Trump’s lawyers, who for months had said that the former president was entitled to have a so-called “special master” conduct a neutral review of the thousands of documents taken from the property.

The ruling from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had been expected given the skeptical questions the judges directed at a Trump lawyer during arguments last week, and because two of the three judges on the panel had already ruled in favor of the Justice Department in an earlier dispute over the special master.

The decision was unanimous from the three-judge panel of Republican appointees, including two selected by Trump. In it, the court rejected each argument by Trump and his attorneys for why a special master was necessary, including his claims that the seized records were protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the judges wrote.

Litigation alongside investigation

The special master litigation has played out alongside an ongoing investigation examining the potential criminal mishandling of national defense information as well as efforts to possibly obstruct that probe. Attorney General Merrick Garland last month appointed Jack Smith, a veteran public corruption prosecutor, to serve as special counsel overseeing that investigation.

It remains unclear how much longer the investigation will last, or who, if anyone, might be charged. But the probe has shown signs of intensifying, with investigators questioning multiple Trump associates about the documents and granting one key ally immunity to ensure his testimony before a federal grand jury. And the appeals court decision is likely to speed the investigation along by cutting short the outside review of the records.

The conflict over the special master began just weeks after the FBI’s search, when Trump sued in federal court in Florida seeking the appointment of an independent arbiter to review the roughly 13,000 documents the Justice Department says were taken from the home.

A federal judge, Aileen Cannon, granted the Trump team’s request, naming veteran Brooklyn judge Raymond Dearie to serve as special master and tasking him with reviewing the seized records and filtering out from the criminal investigation any documents that might be covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

She also barred the Justice Department from using in its criminal investigation any of the seized records, including the roughly 100 with classification markings, until Dearie completed his work.

The Justice Department objected to the appointment, saying that it was an unnecessary hindrance to its criminal investigation and that Trump had no credible basis to invoke either attorney-client privilege or executive privilege to shield the records from investigators.

It sought, as a first step, to regain access to the classified documents. A federal appeals panel sided with prosecutors in September, permitting the Justice Department to resume its review of the documents with classification markings. Two of the judges on that panel — Andrew Brasher and Britt Grant, both Trump appointees — were part of Thursday’s ruling as well.

The department also pressed for unfettered access to the much larger trove of unclassified documents, saying such records could contain important evidence for their investigation.

Thursday’s ruling

In its ruling Thursday, the court directed Cannon to dismiss the lawsuit that gave rise to Dearie’s appointment and suggested Trump had no legal basis to challenge the search in the first place.

“The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so,” the judges wrote.

“Either approach,” they added, “would be a radical reordering of our case law limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”
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