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      Will Alaskans Welcome Sarah Palin’s Political Comeback?

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      Charles Homans, a New York Times reporter who lived in Alaska during Palin’s ascent, reflects on the state’s astonishing political transformation.Greetings from your host Blake Hounshell. Leah Askarinam is off today. We’re joined tonight by our colleague Charles Homans, who writes about Sarah Palin and Alaska’s changing politics.A decade ago, I caught a ride in a pickup truck on the outskirts of Nome, Alaska, with Bob Hafner, a burly, tattooed gold dredger.I was working on an article about the boom in reality TV shows celebrating rugged blue-collar jobs, which seemed to be in production in every corner of America’s most rugged state. As Hafner’s truck bounced along the rutted coast road, I asked what he made of it.He laughed, a little ruefully. “I’m probably partly responsible for it,” he said. “Me and my diving partner, we did that Sarah Palin show.”“Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” produced by Mark Burnett, had recently run for nine episodes on TLC. Palin was filmed communing with enough commercial fishermen, loggers and bush pilots that the odds of randomly encountering one of them on the road in Nome were probably pretty good.Later I watched the Nome episode, and sure enough: There was Hafner standing alongside Palin as she admired a gold nugget the size of a fingernail that he and Palin’s brother, Chuck, had sucked up from the seafloor. “That’s neat!” the former governor said.There was a note of desperation in this strenuous on-screen Alaska-ing, and in Palin’s voice-over declaration during the opening montage that “I love this state like I love my family.”Four years after the 2008 presidential election and three years after her resignation as governor, the waterfront tourist shops in Valdez hawked “Bailin’ Palin” T-shirts. Only 36 percent of Alaskans viewed her positively, and 61 percent viewed her negatively.Ivan Moore, a pollster in Anchorage, recalls that when he asked people who viewed her negatively why they felt that way, “the most common response, streaks ahead of the rest, was: ‘She quit. She’s a quitter.’”Return from the wildernessThe governor’s relationship with her state changed forever with her resignation, which seemed to represent the exchange of Sarah Palin’s Alaska for “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”: a place for a personal brand.Aside from backing an ultimately unsuccessful challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski in 2010 (and the same candidate four years later, in the race for the state’s other Senate seat), she was mostly a nonparticipant in Alaska’s affairs. Her political ambitions seemed entirely national, though even these appeared to flag quickly.Her 2012 presidential campaign ended before it began. Her political action committee still took in millions of dollars, but spent a tiny fraction of the money on candidates or independent expenditures. Her most prominent return to the arena, in 2016, was a stemwinder in service of a politician who would all but supplant her role within the Republican Party. In recent years, she had been in the news most often on account of her libel lawsuit against The New York Times. A jury rejected her claims in February.So it was a surprise when Palin emerged from a decade in the cable-talking-head wilderness to hint at and, on April 1, announce her candidacy for Alaska’s lone House seat, which had opened up with Don Young’s death in March.It was more surprising still to see Palin give a lengthy interview to Nathaniel Herz of The Anchorage Daily News, in which she excoriated the “establishment machine” that would oppose her.“They have a loud voice,” she told Herz. “They hold purse strings. They have the media’s ear. But they do not necessarily reflect the will of the people.”An Arctic political machineRepublican candidates today frequently denounce a greatly weakened party “establishment,” but the line is more jarring coming from Palin, who in 2006 did fight and beat one of the country’s most entrenched and clubby state-level Republican establishments.It is a story that has long since grown threadbare from Palin’s own retelling, but if you lived in Alaska, as I did, at the time of Palin’s primary election victory over the incumbent and Alaskan institution Frank Murkowski, it was a genuinely astonishing moment of political transformation.Alaska in 2006 still possessed something resembling a political machine, which cannily husbanded the state’s all-important relationships with the oil and gas industry and the federal government.Alaskans did not always love the stalwarts of this mostly Republican machine, but they understood that deposing them would potentially cost the state a great deal, so they kept electing them. Probably only someone like Palin, with her messianic conviction, had a shot at toppling it.The F.B.I. helped, too, of course, mounting a yearslong investigation of more than half a dozen lawmakers suspected of having taken bribes from the VECO Corporation, an oil-field contractor, that happened to come to a head shortly after Palin’s primary triumph.Today, Alaskan Republican politics don’t much resemble the hierarchy that Palin tilted against 16 years ago. They look, for better or worse, a lot more like Republican politics everywhere else.Sarah Palin in New York this winter.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesA 48-candidate ballotMany influential G.O.P. figures in Alaska remain cool to Palin, but over more prosaic matters, like her relative lack of involvement locally over her years as a national celebrity.“Most serious Republican figures in Alaska, their question is, ‘Where have you been?’” said Suzanne Downing, a former speechwriter for Palin’s lieutenant and successor as governor, Sean Parnell. Downing, who now edits the right-leaning Must Read Alaska blog, added, “She hasn’t lifted a finger for Alaska since she left office.”Palin’s campaign did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment. In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Palin objected to the suggestion that she had left the state behind.“I’m sorry if that narrative is out there, because it’s inaccurate,” she told The A.P., offering by way of bona fides the fact that she had recently been “shoveling moose poop” in her father’s yard.Early this month, Downing commissioned a poll of the comically large field for the June primary — the ballot for which, with its 48 candidates, looks like a page from a phone book. She concedes to having been shocked when Palin came out in the lead at 31 percent: five percentage points ahead of her nearest rival, Al Gross, an independent who has in past races been endorsed by the state Democratic Party.And yet when the pollster asked about respondents’ favorable or unfavorable views of Palin, the numbers — 37 percent to 51 percent — were not much changed from when Ivan Moore asked the same question a decade ago. In fact, Moore told me that Palin’s numbers had not moved appreciably in intermittent polls over the intervening years.This is unusual: For ordinary politicians, favorability and unfavorability tend to soften as time passes and headlines fade. It’s possible — Moore thinks this — that the longer half-life of Palin’s numbers reflects the depth of the betrayal Alaskans still feel about her resignation.But her most recent national polling — admittedly nine years old — shows an almost identical breakdown of favorable and unfavorable responses. Which raises another possibility: that Palin’s political celebrity is so all-devouring and all-polarizing that even Alaskans, with their very particular history with Palin, can’t see past it.Can a much-changed state still surprise?Downing brought up another possible explanation. Alaska, she reminded me, is extraordinarily transient: 12.8 percent of the population turns over in an average year, more than in any other state. Many of the Alaskans taking the measure of Palin today were not Alaskans when she was in office.They are, in other words, less familiar with Sarah Palin’s Alaska than with “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” One was a place of heady transformation. The other was a veneer of local particularity, stretched over the same national politics that seemed to offer few potential surprises, only deepening entrenchment.“I don’t know,” Downing said, “if she can get a single voter that she doesn’t already own.”What to readThe Florida Senate passed a congressional map proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which would give Republicans an even greater advantage in the state.Herschel Walker, a Republican contender for Senate in Georgia, is a risky candidate for the G.O.P. to run, but he has nevertheless surged to the top of the field, our colleague Maya King reports.Barack Obama, who has waded more and more into the public fray over misinformation and disinformation, is expected to give a speech on the subject at Stanford University on Thursday.briefing bookDisney World’s Main Street, U.S.A., under construction in 1970.Associated PressHow Disney got its own state-within-a-stateWhen Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida urged lawmakers this week to consider ending Disney’s special administrative status, he wasn’t just escalating his cultural standoff with his state’s largest employer.He was also pulling on a string that threatened to unravel an arrangement the state made with Disney in 1967 that granted the company extraordinary power over a 39-square-mile patch of former swampland in Central Florida — an unusual experiment in local governance that has few American counterparts.Disney runs everything from the fire department and emergency services to electricity, gas, water and wastewater, subject to the supervision of a five-member board dominated by the company. It decides what is built, and how, and has the power to raise bonds and assess taxes. The charter for the special municipality, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, even allows Disney to build and operate an airport or a power plant using “nuclear fission” if it so chooses.“It’s almost like a sovereign state inside another state,” said Aaron Goldberg, the author of a book on the origins of Disney World, the company’s Florida resort. Others have called it a “Vatican with mouse ears.”At the time of the district’s creation, the brothers Walt and Roy Disney were searching for the ideal site for the successor resort to Disneyland, their California theme park. It had to be somewhere warm and near major highways — but not too near the ocean, because the company didn’t want to compete with the beach. With the help of Paul Helliwell, a lawyer and longtime intelligence operative, they secretly acquired portions of Orange and Osceola Counties. Announcing the project, Disney spoke of his ambition to build a “city of tomorrow.”To fulfill that vision, Disney demanded sovereignty over its own land and, to make a long story short, Florida said yes.Disney’s futuristic city never happened. Portions became Epcot Center, and the special district has under 50 residents. And over half a century later, DeSantis is re-evaluating the state’s bargain as he contemplates some grand ambitions of his own.“Disney has gotten away with special deals from the state of Florida for way too long,” the governor said in an email to his supporters on Wednesday. “It took a look under the hood to see what Disney has become to truly understand their inappropriate influence.”But taking apart Disney’s magical Florida kingdom might prove complicated. For one thing, The Miami Herald noted on Wednesday that residents of Orange and Osceola Counties might be on the hook for a hefty tax bill should DeSantis get what he wants.As Goldberg put it, “How do you dissolve a government that’s been there for 50 years?”— BlakeIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      David McCormick’s Financial Disclosures in Senate Race Reveal His Wealth

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      The Republican Senate candidate’s financial disclosure statement depicts a wealthy man comfortable walking the halls of power.We can say this much with confidence about David McCormick: The man is rich.In ads and campaign appearances, McCormick, who is running in the Republican primary for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, emphasizes his roots in Bloomsburg, a small town along the state’s Susquehanna River.But his personal financial disclosure statement, which is required of all candidates for federal office, paints the picture of a consummate New York and Washington insider.Last year alone, McCormick pulled in more than $22 million in salary from Bridgewater Associates, the Connecticut hedge fund where he was chief executive until stepping down in January. He sold options in Bechtel, a politically connected global construction firm where he was a board member, for an additional $2.2 million. For serving on the board of In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm close to the U.S. intelligence community, he earned $70,000 more. (McCormick is also a member of the Defense Policy Board, and maintains a security clearance.)And that’s just income. Because federal disclosure forms require candidates to list assets only within broad ranges, it’s not possible to calculate McCormick’s net worth with any precision. But this much is clear: If McCormick were to win the Senate seat, which is being vacated by the retiring Pat Toomey, he would rank among the wealthiest members of Congress.The same would be true of his top rival, Mehmet Oz.Winning against Oz, Carla Sands and Jeff Bartos in next month’s primary won’t be an easy task. Oz, the celebrity doctor, last week won Donald Trump’s endorsement, despite McCormick’s assiduous efforts to court the former president. An average of public polls shows McCormick clinging to a lead of around 4 percentage points, though it’s worth noting that polls of statewide races are famously unreliable.Breaking down McCormick’s wealthMcCormick is married to Dina Powell McCormick, a former Trump administration official who now works for Goldman Sachs. The couple listed assets worth between $116 million and $290 million, and possibly more.They own a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, which once belonged to his parents; a ranch investment property in Colorado; and rental properties in several other cities. McCormick often mentions the farm, which he bought 10 years ago, in his campaign ads and appearances. He has expanded it to grow soy and other crops, the campaign says, but with a value listed at $1 million to $5 million, it represents just a fraction of his wealth.The couple has tens of millions distributed across various funds — notably, they have at least $50 million worth of stock in Bridgewater, his former employer. McCormick has faced questions about the firm’s investments in China, as well as about its handling of teacher pensions in Pennsylvania.McCormick is also an investor in ArcelorMittal, a multinational steel company that competes with the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel — via a revocable trust, a type of trust that can be amended during life and that is often used to manage assets and avoid probate at death.The couple also owns corporate bonds in Delta Air Lines, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Hilton, Oracle and UPS. For good measure, they own a few million dollars’ worth of U.S. Treasuries.David McCormick and his wife, Dina Powell McCormick, at the White House for a state dinner in 2018.Lawrence Jackson for The New York TimesRarefied companyThe McCormicks’ liabilities similarly showcase their extraordinary wealth and connections.They listed between $20 million and $93.5 million in liabilities, including for two mortgages and a line of credit of up to $25 million. Their other liabilities are for various “capital commitments,” meaning potential private equity investments, including as much as half a million dollars to Revolution’s “Rise of the Rest” seed fund.The fund, run by the AOL founder Steve Case, invests in start-up companies outside of the usual Silicon Valley and East Coast haunts. Among the fund’s investors are Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder; Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia; Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive; James Murdoch, the son of the Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch; Tory Burch, the fashion designer; and David Rubenstein, a founder of the Carlyle Group.One interesting coincidence here: J.D. Vance, who was once a managing partner at Revolution, is now a candidate for Senate in neighboring Ohio. Vance’s rags-to-riches personal story, as detailed in his book “Hillbilly Elegy,” was integral to the fund’s sales pitch.Although Vance is nearly 20 years younger, the two men have led remarkably parallel lives. Like McCormick, Vance served in the U.S. military and went on to earn an Ivy League education before starting a career in finance. Both reinvented themselves as MAGA warriors as they decided to run for Senate seats in the Midwest.But Vance scored Trump’s endorsement, while McCormick did not.In Pennsylvania, McCormick has fought bitterly with Oz, trading accusations over which man has closer ties to China, who is a more committed conservative and who is the more authentic representative of the state. Each has plowed millions of his own money into the Senate contest — with McCormick having donated nearly $7 million to his campaign, and Oz contributing more than $11 million to his effort.McCormick has benefited from his Wall Street ties. More than 60 executives at Goldman Sachs have contributed the maximum allowable amount to his campaign, according to a Bloomberg analysis.A super PAC supporting McCormick, Honor Pennsylvania, has raised $15.3 million. Nearly a third of that money has come from Ken Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund manager who backs Republican candidates. Another of the super PAC’s donors is Harry Sloan, a former MGM executive who backed Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2016.Intriguingly, Arjun Gupta, the founder and “chief believer” of TeleSoft Partners, also chipped in $100,000. He usually donates to Democrats. McCormick’s disclosure statement indicates that he is a limited partner in a TeleSoft investment fund. Until McCormick decided to run for office, both men were trustees of the Aspen Institute, a think tank that aims to “solve the greatest challenges of our time.”Alyce McFadden contributed research.What to read One day after a federal judge struck down federal mask mandates on airplanes, buses and trains, President Biden said that Americans should decide for themselves if they want to wear masks on public transportation, Katie Roger reports.Jonathan Weisman examines a phenomenon that frustrates Democratic Party leaders: their base’s penchant for throwing millions of dollars at candidates with no hope of winning.The federal Education Department is retroactively crediting millions of borrowers with additional payments toward loan forgiveness, Stacy Cowley reports. Student debt has become a major political cause on the left, with pressure increasing on President Biden to relieve borrowers through executive action.how they runJim Pillen, left, and Charles Herbster are among Republicans vying to replace Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is term-limited, in Nebraska.Grant Schulte/Associated Press; Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesAfter assault accusations, an ad with … pig jokesTwo new television ads in Nebraska signal how sexual assault accusations against the Republican front-runner for governor will play out in the final weeks of the campaign.Neither the ad by the front-runner, Charles Herbster, nor the one from his top Republican rival, Jim Pillen, mentions the accusations. Not directly, at least.Herbster, who was accused of groping several women including a Republican state senator, has denied the allegations in a radio interview and on Twitter.“Just like the establishment attacked President Trump, now they’re lying about me,” said Herbster in the ad he released, which quickly moved on to other issues. Herbster, a farmer and wealthy businessman, has Trump’s backing in his bid to replace Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is term-limited.The ad from Pillen, who is also a farmer and wealthy businessman, features his young grandchildren asking him political questions. He responds with short, pig-inspired answers. Do you want to cut property taxes? “Whole hog.” Do politicians spend too much? “Like pigs at a trough.” Ban homework? “When pigs fly.” The scene seems intended to convey that Pillen is not only a conservative, but a guy you can trust around your family.As Jonathan Weisman reported, Republican candidates in several states are facing allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence — yet few of their primary rivals, even in competitive races, want to talk about it.On Tuesday, Trump announced he would hold a rally in Nebraska at the end of April. A guest speaker: Herbster.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      David Price Sees Echoes of 1994 Republican Revolution in 2022 Midterms

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      David Price sees echoes of the 1994 Republican Revolution in the 2022 midterms — and Republicans undoing the progress on voting rights that he witnessed as an aide in the 1960s.As a young congressional aide, David Price witnessed the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from the Senate gallery. He remembers the dramatic moment when Senator Clair Engle of California, dying of a brain tumor and left unable to speak, was wheeled in to cast a decisive vote.Price watched the South drift away from Democrats in the years afterward, and he has stuck around long enough to see his party win slices of it back as the region’s demographics have shifted.He spent much of that time as a professor of political science at Duke University, and then as an improbable member of the very institution he studied — even writing a book on “The Congressional Experience.”Now 81 and in the twilight of his career, Price is retiring from Congress after more than 30 years representing his North Carolina district, which includes the Research Triangle. He is one of the longest-serving lawmakers in Washington and an especially keen observer of how the place has changed.And he does not like what he sees.Over his time in office, Price has grown alarmed at how Congress has become nastier and more partisan — a trend he traces to former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, whose “more aggressive and more militant approach” to politics, as Price put it, fundamentally transformed the institution.“I’m appalled at the direction the Republican Party has taken,” Price said in an interview in his House office. “And I don’t, for a moment, think that the polarization is symmetrical. It’s asymmetrical.”Many of today’s hardball political tactics were pioneered in North Carolina, a state characterized by bitter battles over the very rules of democracy.In 2016, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina turned heads when he declared that the state “could no longer be classified as a democracy.” The State Supreme Court has often stepped in as an arbiter between the two parties — most recently when it threw out maps that were heavily gerrymandered by the G.O.P.-led Legislature.Price first ran for office after trying and failing, as a political strategist, to oust Jesse Helms, the deeply conservative, pro-segregation North Carolina senator. Price took some satisfaction in the fact that the Senate recently confirmed the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.In today’s politics, Price sees ominous echoes of the 1994 campaign, when the mood of the country shifted sharply against President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party.“My town meetings became very turbulent,” he said, recalling how his campaign had to request police protection.Price became a temporary victim of Gingrich’s Republican Revolution in 1994, losing his seat in that year’s red wave. He made a comeback two years later, and would serve in the House for the next 26 years.Behind the scenesCerebral and reserved, Price prefers to work carefully and quietly on a few priorities at a time. He does not clamor for MSNBC hits or post viral videos of his speeches from the House floor.“I’ve never been a tweeter,” he said, somewhat ruefully.Instead, Price has exerted a significant, behind-the-scenes influence over causes like promoting democracy abroad and pushing changes to federal campaign finance laws. You know that tagline at the end of political ads — the one where candidates say they approved this message? That was his idea.“He’s got his fingerprints all over a lot of things,” said Thomas Mills, a North Carolina political strategist and blogger.Price hasn’t lost the youthful idealism that brought him to that Senate gallery in 1964. “You’re not going to find me taking cheap shots at government,” he said.But he agonizes about how dysfunctional Congress has become, to the point where compromise is growing impossible. “Some degree of bipartisan cooperation is essential if we’re going to run our government,” he said dryly.Price, left, at a 2008 rally in support of Senator Barack Obama, second from right, in Greenville, N.C.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressHe warned that some Republicans want to roll back the civil rights agenda that brought him into politics in the 1960s — to the point where, he said, the U.S. is in “real danger” of entering a new Jim Crow era.In 2013, the Supreme Court effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, freeing states with a history of racial discrimination from requirements that they clear any material changes to their voting laws with the Justice Department.The ruling immediately set off a wave of laws in Republican-led states that restricted voting rights. In 2016, a federal judge said that G.O.P. lawmakers in North Carolina had written the state’s voter I.D. law with “almost surgical precision” to discriminate against Black voters.“The evidence just couldn’t be clearer that months after preclearance was gone, it was ‘Katie, bar the door,’” Price said.If you can’t join them …The only reliable way to defeat such efforts is for Democrats to win elections, Price argues.Last year’s infighting over the Build Back Better Act, a mammoth piece of legislation that was rejected by two Democratic senators, didn’t help.“We can never make a binary choice between turning out our base and appealing to swing voters,” he said. “We will not succeed if we don’t figure out how to do both.”Part of the Democratic Party’s problem, he said, is the discomfort many on the left feel about promoting the party’s successes when there’s always more work to do.“I often think about how Trump did this,” Price said. “He just bragged about his achievements, however illusory.”Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? 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      Brazil’s climate politics are shifting. That matters for the whole planet.

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      The Amazon is emerging as a central issue in this year’s presidential campaign. Leaders have taken note.A message from your Climate Forward host: I’d like you to meet Manuela. She’s my partner on Climate Forward, and you’ll hear from her regularly when I’m out on reporting trips and unavailable to write the newsletter. Today, she takes you inside the climate politics of her home country, Brazil. — Somini SenguptaIn Brazil, beef isn’t just food. It’s political. It’s a symbol of dignity and equality, and the price of beef is a kind of barometer of well-being in the country.“Beef is not a privilege for people with money,” former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview last year.But now, with elections just months away, da Silva, who is better known as Lula, seems to be taking a more environmentally conscious position. He’s suddenly talking about vegetable barbecues and organic salads.“I broadened my perspective,” he said on Twitter in February. He was not just concerned about whether the average Brazilian could afford a barbecue, Lula said, “but also vegetarian people, who don’t eat meat, being able to eat a good organic salad, us encouraging healthier agriculture in our country.”At 76, and with more than five decades of politics under his belt, Lula is adapting. And his willingness to do so makes it clear that, for the first time, climate and the environment will be at the center of the debates before Brazilians vote for president and the national legislature on Oct. 2.Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, is one of the best-known politicians in the developing world. Under his administration, millions rose out of poverty, helped by China’s growing hunger for Brazilian commodities like soybeans and steel.Beef was, in some ways, a thread that ran though his presidency. It became a more frequent part of daily meals and one of the country’s major exports. Lula’s administration poured millions from Brazil’s development bank into meatpacking companies, and those operations, in turn, eventually grew to become major drivers of deforestation in the Amazon.This time around, though, Lula is talking about supporting that “healthier agriculture” he mentioned on Twitter.Izabella Teixeira, who served as one of Lula’s environment ministers, told me the former president always treated climate issues seriously. But she said she saw something new in the way climate and environment issues seem to be gaining prominence in his speeches and debates.“He is looking at it with a modern mind set,” she said. “It is one thing to correct the past, to undo mistakes. It is another thing to affirm new paths.”President Biden similarly made climate a pillar of his campaign, as did Gabriel Boric, who became president of Chile in March. Just a few weeks ago, Colombia’s leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro chose an environmental activist as his running mate. The first round of that election is May 29.The choice Brazilians make matters for global climate targets. Brazil is, by some measures, the world’s sixth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. More important, though, is why: It is currently slashing its part of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, at a pace not seen in over a decade.Lula’s environmental record is mixed. Back in the day, his administration pushed for new policies that sharply curbed Amazon deforestation, even as agribusiness, including beef, grew. But he seemed to disregard the need for an energy transition, instead refusing to support legislation that would have required Brazil to phase out fossil fuels.Under the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, climate action has been all but abandoned. The recent explosion in deforestation rates, which have angered the world, will unquestionably be one of the main legacies of his presidency.Brazil’s current policies have intensified its climate challenge. And it’s not just because of beef. Soy, the country’s top commodity, is increasing pressure on the Cerrado, the country’s vast tropical savanna. There’s also Brazil’s heavy dependence on oil and steel exports.Bolsonaro’s rise to power is widely seen as a response to a multibillion dollar corruption scandal that upended Brazilian politics years ago. Prosecutors said Lula was implicated at the top of the scandal. He spent 580 days in prison in connection with a conviction that was ultimately overturned.As Lula has clawed his way back into public life, he has refused to acknowledge mistakes in the corruption scandal. When it comes to climate policy, though, he has signaled a willingness to reform his legacy.Earlier this week, speaking to thousands of Indigenous people gathered in a demonstration in Brasília, the capital, he promised to appoint an Indigenous cabinet minister. It would be a first for Brazil, a country where Indigenous people are at the forefront of the environmental movement.Past governments of his Workers’ Party, Lula said, “didn’t do all they should have done” for Indigenous people.So far, Lula has the lead over Bolsonaro, who is seeking re-election, in all the main opinion polls, though the race has been tightening. Hunger, unemployment, inflation and the Covid pandemic will also be major issues during the campaign.But the two candidates’ radically different views on the environment could be crucial. According to a poll in September, 80 percent of voters believe protecting the Amazon rainforest should be a priority for presidential candidates.A majority also said a specific plan to defend the Amazon would increase their willingness to vote for a candidate.California’s plan to eliminate gas cars, if adopted, would very likely set the bar for the broader auto industry.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesEssential news from The TimesPhasing out gas cars: Officials in California made public plans to prohibit the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.White House departure: People close to Gina McCarthy, President Biden’s top climate adviser, say she plans to quit because she is unhappy with the slow pace of progress.Even cactuses aren’t safe: More than half of species could face greater extinction risk by midcentury, a new study found, as rising heat and dryness test the plants’ limits.Antarctic puzzle solved: Researchers say the collapse of the two ice shelves was most likely triggered by vast plumes of warm air from the Pacific.‘Silent victim’ of war: Research on past conflicts suggests that, in addition to the human toll, the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have a profound environmental impact.From the Opinion sectionDitch the gas-powered leaf blower: Get an electric one or just use a rake, Jessica Stolzberg writes.Other stuff we’re followingThe latest issue of National Geographic is all about saving forests.A new analysis showed that many big utilities in America are actively pushing back against climate policies, according to The Washington Post.Banks around the world are abandoning coal projects, except in China, according to Bloomberg.A new podcast from the Food & Environment Reporting Network talks to farmers about what they are doing to adapt to climate change.Parts of the Sacramento Valley in California have received their earliest-ever “red flag” warning for fire danger, Capital Public Radio reported.One TikToker found the transportation of the future.Adélie penguins on an iceberg near Paulet Island at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Tomás MunitaBefore you go: For these birds, location mattersAdélie penguins are having a rough time on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, where warming linked to climate change has occurred faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. One researcher called the situation a “train wreck” for the birds. On the eastern side of the peninsula, however, it’s a very different story. Adélie populations there seem to be doing just fine. You can find out why, and see some impressive photos from a recent survey expedition in our article.Thanks for reading. We’ll be back on Tuesday.Claire O’Neill and Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward. Reach us at climateforward@nytimes.com. We read every message, and reply to many! More

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      Trial Alleging Voter Suppression in 2018 Abrams-Kemp Georgia Race Begins

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      A trial is underway to determine whether Georgia’s handling of the 2018 election for governor was discriminatory, in a case brought by Stacey Abrams’s voting rights group.The 2018 race for governor in Georgia ended in a bitter dispute between Brian Kemp, a Republican who was serving as secretary of state at the time, and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic challenger who accused the state of voter suppression.The election, won by Kemp, was plagued by long lines, especially in communities of color where wait times occasionally exceeded two hours. And Kemp’s office put 53,000 voter registrations on hold under the state’s “exact match” rule, which requires that voters’ registration information exactly match what is on file with the state’s Department of Driver Services or Social Security Administration. Many of those 53,000 were Black voters, according to an investigation by The Associated Press in 2018.After the election, Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by Abrams, sued the state, claiming its election practices were illegal and discriminatory.Now, more than three years after the suit was filed, the trial began on Monday in Atlanta — the first federal voting rights trial in Georgia in over a decade. Abrams is now in the middle of a second campaign for governor, a rematch with Kemp.After Judge Steve C. Jones tossed parts of the original lawsuit last year, Fair Fight opened its case challenging three specific tenets of the Georgia election system. These tenets, the group says, make it harder for people to vote, especially Black voters.“Through the three practices at issue in this case — exact match, affirmative mismanagement of the voter rolls and failure to train on absentee ballot cancellations — these defendants have erected a series of roadblocks — roadblocks that propose unjustifiable burdens on eligible voters in violation of both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, a lawyer for Fair Fight and the other plaintiffs, said in her opening statement.The office of Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state and the defendant in the case, has said repeatedly that the state has already beaten back most of the claims in court, and accused Fair Fight of playing politics.“They ran this litigation like a campaign,” Joshua B. Belinfante, a lawyer for the secretary of state, said in his opening remarks. He continued: “What the evidence will show is what the plaintiffs allege is part of a campaign is not what is happening on the ground in Georgia elections.”Echoes from the pastFair Fight and other groups have challenged Georgia’s election laws on both constitutional grounds and under a provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 2. The trial represents one of the first marquee challenges using this provision after the Supreme Court weakened its protections for voting rights last year.In her opening remarks, Lawrence-Hardy spoke of John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon who died in 2020. And she drew comparisons between the current legal battle and the state’s history of suppressing voters. Georgia was one of the states that were put under special federal oversight by the Voting Rights Act when it was signed in 1965 because of the history of discrimination at the polls in those states.“The methods may be different than in the past, but the state’s creation of barriers to voting in Georgia have the same impact, particularly for people of color and immigrants who meet all eligibility requirements to vote in Georgia’s elections,” Lawrence-Hardy said. She added that when the state first proposed the exact-match identification policy in 2009, Georgia was still under federal oversight and the Justice Department rejected the initial proposal.The trial, which is expected to last roughly a month, will feature dozens of voters who claim that their right to vote was foiled by the state’s rules and regulations, with anecdotes from both the 2018 and the 2020 elections. Election workers will also testify.“You’ll hear how these election workers, who come from all political persuasions and demographic roots, operate under extraordinarily trying circumstances,” Belinfante, the lawyer for the secretary of state, said in his opening remarks. “And you’ll hear how at the end of the day they just want to get it right.”But the trial will not focus on the state’s controversial new voting law that was passed last year and that added numerous new restrictions on voting. The lawsuit was filed before that law was introduced and passed.A window of opportunityThough Raffensperger is on the defense, the trial also presents a political opportunity for the sitting secretary of state, who is seeking re-election. After he rebuffed Donald Trump’s entreaties to “find” enough votes to subvert the election in Georgia, Raffensperger became a key target of Trump, who has endorsed a well-funded challenger in Representative Jody Hice, a Republican who has publicly claimed that Trump won the election in Georgia.Raffensperger has not backed down from saying Trump legitimately lost the 2020 election in Georgia, a stance that has put him at odds with a segment of the Republican base who will be deciding his fate in the May 24 primary.But the trial has allowed Raffensperger the opportunity to attack Abrams and embrace issues that help endear him to the Republican base, such as noncitizen voting. Republicans have focused on noncitizens voting in their hunt for widespread voter fraud (there is no evidence of swaths of noncitizens voting, nor of widespread fraud) and also to justify new policies. Lawyers for Fair Fight contend that part of the “exact match” process could result in citizens being prevented from voting, including newly naturalized citizens.“I want to make sure it is citizen-only voting here in the state of Georgia,” Raffensperger said in a brief news conference before the trial began on Monday. “We are defending this basic protection of the integrity of Georgia’s elections.”Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, has accused Fair Fight of playing politics with the lawsuit. Dustin Chambers/ReutersWhat to read President Biden announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would lift summertime regulations on E15, an ethanol-gasoline blend, the latest sign that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed the White House to embrace fossil fuels.U.S.-backed news outlets and Ukrainian activists’ efforts to deliver news to Russians are starting to show signs of working, sowing doubt in the Kremlin’s accounts of the invasion.North Carolina dropped Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, from its voter rolls, as officials investigate whether he fraudulently cast a ballot in the state in 2020.in the moment Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas used the migrant drop-off as a fund-raising opportunity. Joel Martinez/The Monitor, via Associated PressTexas sends a bus to … Fox News The arrival of a busload of migrants sent to Washington by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas made for quite the event.Not so much on the ground, but on cable news, on Twitter and in fund-raising emails.In response to the Biden administration’s plans to end a Trump-era pandemic policy that turned away most unauthorized migrants at the border, Abbott pledged to put immigrants on charter buses and send them to Washington. This morning, the first bus arrived near Union Station, with Fox News camera crews ready to record the moment.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      An Arizona Democrat Tries to Hang On in a Trump-Tilting District

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      Representative Tom O’Halleran of Arizona is seeking re-election as his district leans further toward Trump. His strategy? Don’t change. “I am,” he says, “who I am.”Arizona has a history of producing lightning-rod members of Congress, like Representative Paul Gosar. But the Arizona politician you should be paying attention to — and who can potentially tell us a great deal about Democrats’ hopes of avoiding a 2022 wipeout in the House — probably isn’t on your radar.That would be Representative Tom O’Halleran, a Democrat who has been in office since 2017 and who started out his political career as something few Democrats can claim — a Republican.O’Halleran’s district was redrawn in 2020 and became tougher and Trumpier. Many say he’s doomed to fail, but O’Halleran is unfazed. Despite all the challenges Democrats face in the midterms this year — President Biden’s low approval ratings, historical precedent for the party in power, overheating inflation — O’Halleran believes old-fashioned retail politics will come through for him. His approach is an example of the stubborn yet necessary hope that Democrats can both localize and personalize their races in order to overcome a punishing national environment.“I’m not somebody that stokes the fire,” O’Halleran, 76, said in an interview last week. “I’m somebody that tries to keep it in the area where it’s contained so that we can continue to use it effectively.”Even before it was redrawn, O’Halleran’s district, which includes most of eastern Arizona, was highly competitive. Donald Trump carried it in 2016, the year O’Halleran won his seat. He has held it since then thanks in part to recruiting problems by Republicans, who have put forward an array of over-the-top and underwhelming candidates.This year, the Republican primary field includes a former contender on the reality TV show “Shark Tank” and a QAnon conspiracy theorist.But now the district is even friendlier to Republicans: Trump won 53 percent of its voters in 2020. Some Republicans argue that in this political environment, any conservative candidate who wins the primary will win the general election, so it’s less important for the party than it has been in the past to find a superstar candidate.“There’s a limit to how far you can outrun your party before political gravity eventually catches up with you, especially in a year like this,” said Calvin Moore, a spokesman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, House Republicans’ super PAC.O’Halleran has only so much control over his electoral fate, with the political world anticipating a Republican wave that flips the House. Some Democrats merely hope that O’Halleran and a few of the party’s other candidates in tough races can hold on and deny Republicans an overwhelming majority.In that scenario, O’Halleran is at the front lines of Democrats’ defense, defying the partisanship of his district as he has done multiple times before. And the way the Republican primary is shaking out, it’s very possible that O’Halleran could end up with another weak opponent in the general election.He feels confident either way.“I was a Republican, remember?” he said. “I’m the same person then as I am now. And so I think people will remember that.”‘I am who I am’You won’t find O’Halleran talking about progressive policies on cable news or criticizing his Republican colleagues in the newspaper. It’s all part of his political strategy.A former police officer in Chicago, he was first elected to the Arizona Legislature as a Republican in 2000, and served in both chambers through 2009. After losing his State Senate seat to a more conservative candidate, he unsuccessfully ran to return to the state Legislature as an independent, then ran for the U.S. House as a Democrat in 2016.He claims to do more town hall events than anybody else in Arizona. And while he acknowledges that fame allows some members of Congress to fill their campaign coffers and help build enthusiasm, he says that’s not for him.When asked how he’d respond to concerns from voters about gas prices and inflation, he launched into an explanation that included a description of a chart presented at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, sprinkled with mentions of supply and demand. When asked how he’d fit that message into a 30-second ad, he responded, “What will be in the 30-second campaign ad is my sincerity.”He said this race would come down to how much his constituents trust him, the same as in past races. That’s one reason he’s not changing his approach, even though he now has new constituents.“I am who I am,” he said, adding, “If I start changing because of that, that’s going to say to them I’m willing to make changes based on my ability to get elected versus my ability to help lead.”The competition across the aisleO’Halleran also dismisses the idea that he’s been lucky with his Republican competition over the years.In 2016, he was challenged by a former sheriff who had stepped down from Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign after being accused of threatening to deport his ex-boyfriend. In 2018, O’Halleran faced an Air Force veteran who had already lost a few House contests. In 2020, a challenger who struggled with fund-raising in 2018 struggled once again.This year, the crowded Republican primary includes Ron Watkins, a former website administrator who is widely believed to have played a major role in writing the anonymous QAnon posts. Republicans doubt that Watkins will make it far. He last reported having raised just over $50,000, behind three other Republicans who have made federal campaign filings.But even the candidate perceived to be most appealing to the establishment — Eli Crane, the top Republican fund-raiser — has positions that would be tough to defend with moderates. He’s a former member of the Navy SEALs, former contender on “Shark Tank” and has boasted that he supported decertifying the 2020 election. His top competition for the nomination might be State Representative Walt Blackman, a decorated veteran who once praised the Proud Boys.When asked about the primary field, Republican strategists did not express much excitement, but they were also confident their party would win the seat anyway. And even if a candidate who is underwhelming at fund-raising wins the nomination, they expect outside groups to help out.The expensive Phoenix media market might not have seemed worth the investment in previous years, but with such a promising national environment and the district’s new partisan composition, Republicans expect it’ll be worth the effort this time.“Candidates and campaigns always matter,” said Brian Seitchik, an Arizona-based Republican consultant. “Having said that, with the redraw of that congressional district and a hyper-favorable environment for Republicans, I’d say that race is going to be the Republicans’ race to lose in November.”But O’Halleran’s team remains optimistic. Rodd McLeod, a Democratic consultant who is working with O’Halleran, maintains that the congressman’s relationships with constituents run deeper than partisanship.“He could be the guy,” McLeod said, “who outlasted the wave.”What to read Donald Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor, for the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, Trip Gabriel reports.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is split on whether to make a criminal referral of Trump to the Justice Department, Michael S. Schmidt and Luke Broadwater report.The Biden administration has long been torn over how to handle Trump-era immigration policies, report Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Michael D. Shear and Eileen Sullivan.Fiona Hill, who advised Trump and his predecessors on Russia, connects the Jan. 6 attack to the invasion of Ukraine, in an article by Robert Draper in The New York Times Magazine.at issue“What we have going for us,” said Jane Kleeb, Nebraska’s Democratic Party chairwoman, “is that we are small — small but mighty.”Walker Pickering for The New York TimesNebraska wants to be the next IowaFor the last 50 years, Nebraska’s role in presidential primaries has largely been as a place with a good airport for traveling to western Iowa.Now, with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation spot in grave peril after the last two Democratic caucuses were flubbed, Nebraska is ready to enter the contest to knock its neighbor off the beginning of the Democratic presidential nominating calendar.“Nebraska is going to go for it,” Jane Kleeb, the state’s Democratic Party chairwoman, told me.She will lobby her fellow Democratic National Committee members to back Nebraska in jumping to the front of the nominating line, she said. Republicans, meanwhile, remain committed so far to keeping Iowa first.Among the Democrats, Nebraska will have competition. New Jersey offered itself last month to the D.N.C., and Michigan’s Democratic officials are also lobbying to go first.Both are big states dominated by urban areas in expensive media markets. The appeal of the traditional early states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — is that they in theory are small enough to build grass-roots campaigns that aren’t just television productions.Kleeb’s pitch is that Nebraska has inexpensive media markets in Omaha, Lincoln and Grand Island; a recent record, unlike Iowa, of sending one of its electoral votes to Democratic presidential candidates; a mix of urban, suburban and rural voters; a significant Latino population at 11 percent; and plenty of Fortune 500 companies — and Warren Buffett — to help underwrite party-building in the state.“We know that we will be going up against a big Midwest state like Michigan,” she said. “What we have going for us is that we are small — small but mighty.”A shift from Iowa to Nebraska would keep rural issues front and center for an increasingly urban Democratic Party. Candidates would have to become fluent in pipeline and eminent domain politics, where Kleeb got her political start, and learn to embrace the runza, the unofficial state sandwich of Nebraska.— Leah (Blake is on vacation)Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Ginni Thomas’s Texts Show Why Our Democracy Is in Danger  

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      A week has gone by and I’m still aghast. Still astonished. Still absorbing what Ginni Thomas said in those text messages to Mark Meadows, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, as she urged him to overturn the 2020 election, and what she apparently believes in her poisoned mind.So let’s please, please move past Will Smith and the deconstruction of that ugly incident and reallocate our attention to her behavior. It has broader and more profound consequences. It also explains why, despite my efforts not to, I sometimes feel almost hopeless about this country’s present and future.“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Thomas wrote to Meadows in the days following the election, her derangement and despair wrought in a bonanza of exclamation points. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice.”The precipice! I should haul out a few extra exclamation points myself, especially because Thomas went on to say that she and Meadows were watching “the Left” attempt “the greatest Heist of our History.”She’s up in arms. She’s uppercase. And she’s emblematic: Her gratuitously capitalized words distill what makes political discussion today so difficult and why our democracy is indeed in danger.“This Great President.” That’s no accidental pinkie — no clumsy thumb — on the shift key. Among today’s extreme partisans, who represent a frighteningly large slice of the electorate, a given president or politician is a commanding general in the battle of good versus evil. I mean Good versus Evil.Restraint is retro. Hyperbole is the order of the day. Thus, “precipice” is the new “edge,” “Heist” is the updated “scam,” and “of our History” is an essential qualifier, lest someone underestimate the threat and minimize the stakes.There’s no entertaining the thought that a majority of your fellow Americans may not share your views. In an age of extreme narcissism, that’s unimaginable, impossible, phantasmagorical.If the polls cast you in the minority, they’re wrong. If the vote runs contrary to your desires, it’s rigged. Or those fellow Americans just don’t matter, not like you do. You’re on the side of the angels. They’re trying to shepherd everyone into the abyss.That Manichaean mind-set is legible in Thomas’s language, which jettisons temperance and truth. There’s no oxygen for either in the right’s — excuse me, the Right’s — exaggerated sense of extreme grievance, which she so perfectly embodies.What a terrifying moment, in which the wife of a serving Supreme Court justice unabashedly exploits her insider access, ignores the idea of checks and balances, promotes conspiracy theories and essentially endorses insurrection. Her conduct isn’t some passing curiosity. It’s a sign of the times. And it’s a warning to us all.A Few Notes About ‘Don’t Say Gay’Octavio Jones/ReutersFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis is right. The words “Don’t Say Gay” appear nowhere in the “parental rights” legislation that he signed on Monday, which bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity with young schoolchildren in Florida. “Don’t Say Gay” is the negative nickname that the law’s opponents have given it, and DeSantis has deftly portrayed that nomenclature as liberal hysteria and leftist overreach.But that, too, is unfair. There are reasons aplenty to balk at what Florida has done — to see it as more than a simple caveat affecting only students through the third grade. And I say that as someone who is not pushing instruction on matters gay or trans for students in that age range, who doesn’t care a whit whether a 7-year-old knows the name Harvey Milk, who agrees that parents’ sensibilities and sensitivities must be factored into how schools operate.Here’s what DeSantis doesn’t cop to: a vagueness in the legislation’s language that suggests its potential application to children well beyond the third grade. Look at the words I’ve boldfaced in this clause of the law: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” What additional prohibitions — what future muzzling — are those phrases opening the door to?It’s a necessary question, because it’s coupled with this one: What’s motivating the law’s promoters and supporters, who’ve lifted this issue above so many others with more relevance to, and impact on, the quality of Floridians’ everyday lives?In case you missed it, DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, framed the bill as an important defense against pedophiles’ recruitment of children into homosexual activity. There’s no other way to read this tweet of hers: “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.” She’s paid to articulate DeSantis’s viewpoints, and she’s peddling perhaps the nastiest, cruelest homophobic stereotype there is.Under fire for those remarks, she said that she was using her personal Twitter account during her off-work hours. How very reassuring.For the Love of SentencesGetty ImagesIn the Times newsletter Read Like the Wind, the book critic Molly Young spins many magical sentences, sometimes within a single paragraph, like this one in a recent reflection on the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and his novel “Ubik”: “It may be worth noting that what jelly beans were to President Reagan, amphetamine tablets were to Dick. The man simply loved his uppers. Sometimes I approximate his state of mind by bolting a Monster energy drink before settling in for some sci-fi. (My favorite flavor of Monster is called ‘Assault.’ It tastes like Coca-Cola mixed with poison.) The blurb on this copy of ‘Ubik’ describes Dick as ‘The most brilliant SF mind on any planet.’ Any planet!” (Thanks to Zoe Zagorski of Portland, Ore., and Conrad Macina of Landing, N.J., for nominating Molly’s prose.)Sticking with Times book critics, here’s Alexandra Jacobs in her recent review of “Truly, Madly,” by Stephen Galloway, which describes Vivien Leigh’s romance with a certain screen and stage legend named Laurence: “Her three-decade entanglement with Olivier, considered one of the greatest talents of his generation, was its own sort of doomed flight: It soared sharply into the heavens, then was rocked with turbulence before its inevitable tumble down to earth and straight through to hell.” (Sandy Peters, Phoenix)Also in The Times, Ligaya Mishan, contemplating lentils, had lyrical leguminous fun: “They start out as pebbles in the hand, hard and tiny — in certain parts of the world, they are the size against which all small things are measured. Then, in the pot, their little stony hearts melt. They soften, loosen up and let other flavors in. They’re still discrete, still individuals, but now joined in common cause, and they swell and grow plump, so you end up with more than twice as much, velvety and lush.” (Stella Liu, Manhattan)Paul Krugman noted: “Putin’s response to failure in Ukraine has been extremely Trumpian: insisting that his invasion is all going ‘according to plan,’ refusing to admit having made any mistakes and whining about cancel culture. I’m half expecting him to release battle maps crudely modified with a Sharpie.” (Avi Liveson, Chatham, N.J., and Valerie Masin, Boston, among others)And Bret Stephens, in his weekly back-and-forth with Gail Collins, wrote: “It looks like we have a new superinfectious subvariant of Covid to keep us awake at night. Forget Omicron, now we’ve got Omigod.” (Kris Schaff, Omaha, Neb., and Larry Berman, Westfield, N.J.)In National Parks magazine, Jacob Baynham reported on a positive reaction to the meatless, fungus-based breakfast patties he cooked for his family one morning: “Our disobedient dog begged at my feet, an endorsement tempered by the fact that he also eats mouth guards, used tissues and socks.” (Peter Alexander, Longmont, Colo.)In a review of “Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman,” by Susanne Schattenberg, in The London Review of Books, Neal Ascherson wrote: “Polish communism was dead, though it took nearly eight years for the nation to wriggle out from under the corpse.” (George Milman, Beverly Hills, Calif.)And in his Weekly Dish newsletter on Substack, Andrew Sullivan pondered the rebirth of imperial Russia with this observation: “The greatest mistake liberals make when assessing reactionaryism is to underestimate it. There is a profound, mesmerizing allure — intensified by disillusion with the shallows of modernity — to the idea of recovering some great meaning from decades or centuries gone by, to resurrect and resuscitate it, to blast away all the incoherence and instability of postmodern life into a new collective, ancient meaning.” (Stephen Ranger, Toronto)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here, and please include your name and place of residence.On a Personal Note (Reader Mailbag Edition)ReganFrank BruniI’ve felt the lash of your anger when I’ve written harshly about a public figure you admire. I’ve experienced the sting of your disappointment when I’ve praised a book or movie that you then checked out and didn’t like at all. In a manner that pleases me — because it tells me that you’re engaged — you’re quick to give me feedback, bitter as well as sweet.And you let me have it about my possible miscoloring of a beautiful bird.I wrote last week about “flares of orange” outside my windows in Chapel Hill, N.C., and I guessed that those were cardinals flying by. Many of you were scandalized and sent me emails noting that cardinals are red. You recommended apps that could help me with my avian ineptitude. You urged me to educate myself about the natural world. I could feel myself being marched off to flora-and-fauna boot camp — which is probably where I indeed belong.My feathered friends are definitely cardinals, and they may well have been more red than orange — my grasp of color is less than firm. But cardinals, it turns out, can be orange or at least orange-ish red. They’re chromatically noncommittal. I was probably being sloppy with my description of those “flares,” but maybe my yard’s cardinals are special? I’ll keep an eye peeled and a color wheel at hand and I’ll let you know.You wrote me, too, with a complaint that I’ve also fielded from many of you in the past: Where’s Regan? When a few newsletters go by without any photo of, or tribute to, my canine companion, some of you object and others actually worry.I’m happy to alleviate your concern with the picture at the top of this section of the newsletter. It’s Regan rolling around recently in the front yard, just for the tactile sensation and pure fun of it. She does that sometimes when she’s excited, or when there’s a perfect nip in the air, or maybe when she’s bored, or possibly when she feels some generous impulse to entertain me. Down she goes and around she twists. Each of my giggles prompts more of her squiggles. We have this down to a clownish science.Many of you also point out errors of language, and Ervin Duggan of Davidson, N.C., flagged my statement last week that Ted Cruz, so odious during the confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, at least deserved points for “gumption.” “Gumption” actually or usually means initiative or resourcefulness, and I indeed didn’t intend to compliment the Texas senator for either. I was steering toward something more along the lines of audacity and took a wrong turn. Maybe I had, in my mind, “bumption,” which isn’t a word according to several dictionaries I consulted but has, in the past, circulated a bit as a kin to overblown arrogance. Cruz possesses that in spades.Judge Jackson doesn’t, as best I can tell. None of you complained that in my assessment of the hearing, I never digressed from my disgust over many senators’ bad behavior to praise her for a preternatural degree of restraint. But I’ll say it: I should have. She comported herself with dignity, which strikes me as the ideal cornerstone of judicial character. More

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      Race to Replace Don Young Is Set to Be a Fascinating Political Experiment

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      The election to fill the seat of the Alaska congressman, who died last week, promises to be a Yukon adventure. It’s also a fascinating political experiment in the making.How do you replace a man who once willingly put his hand in a steel trap during a congressional hearing until it turned blue? Who waggled an 18-inch walrus penis bone at a top administration official? Who held a knife to the throat of a fellow lawmaker?How, in sum, do you replace Don Young?The death of Representative Young at age 88 last week leaves a void that won’t easily be filled, Alaskan political insiders tell us. Young was the longest-serving Republican in the history of Congress, a living relic who decorated his House office with stuffed animal trophies and larded his speech with profanity. He cultivated the image of a crude frontiersman in Washington while protecting Alaska’s extractive industries and, as our colleague Emily Cochrane writes today, steering billions of federal dollars to pet projects back home.Young flouted ethics rules with abandon. Regulators once forced him to repay nearly $60,000 for trips to hunting lodges that had been financed through campaign money. On another occasion, he was accused of taking bribes, though no formal charges were brought against him. His irascible outbursts often got him into trouble, as when he referred to Latino immigrants with an ethnic slur or when, before an audience of high school students, he used a profane term for anal sex when describing a photography exhibit.In a replacement, Alaskans are looking for “someone who will go to Washington, give the bureaucrats hell and bring home the pork,” said Michael Carey, a columnist for The Anchorage Daily News and a longtime Young observer. “But I don’t think anybody can wrap themselves in his mythos.”Just days after Young’s death, the race to succeed him is well underway. Friday is the deadline to file official paperwork, and potential candidates are already lining up.Al Gross, a former orthopedic surgeon who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2020, is running as a “nonpartisan.” He is perhaps best known for a goofy music video promoting his candidacy that includes the line, “He’s killed a bear, caught lots of fish, not swayed by party politics” and ends by describing him as “Alaska’s own bear doctor.”John Coghill, a former state senator with ties to the evangelical community, is running as a Republican. Nick Begich III, the Republican scion of Alaskan political royalty, has also indicated that he will enter the race, as has Christopher Constant, an openly gay Democrat who is a member of the Anchorage Assembly.Few expect Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, to run. She told Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, last week that she was weighing whether to “throw my hat in the ring,” but made no commitment.Some in the Republican establishment favor Joshua Revak, an Iraq war veteran who previously worked for Young and is now a state senator. There’s also Tara Sweeney, an Alaska Native whose husband, Kevin Sweeney, is a consultant for Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election campaign. Tara Sweeney served in the Trump administration as assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs.Young’s death came as he faced growing doubts about his political longevity, with the prospect of being squeezed from left and right for the first time.“For years, Don was this untouchable Alaskan institution,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, a political consultant in Anchorage. “He had always been able to turn his fire and intensity on one enemy. But he had never really had to fight a war on two fronts.”Alaska’s political experimentWhoever ultimately decides to run, the House special election to replace Young will be watched closely. For the first time, the state will be using its unique “top four” primary system — and Alaskans aren’t sure what to expect.In the first round of the special election, to be held on June 11, every candidate appears on the same ballot. Voters each pick one candidate, and the four top vote-getters move ahead to the special general election, scheduled for Aug. 16. Voters then rank up to four favorites, including a write-in option. If no one earns an outright majority, election officials eliminate the lowest-ranking candidate, repeating the process up to three times until there is a winner.Supporters of the system say it will break the stranglehold political parties have over primary elections, give voters more choices and create incentives for bipartisan cooperation.“We’re already seeing more and different kinds of names, which is great for voters,” said Jason Grenn, the executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonprofit group that promotes the top-four system.Some confusion might be inevitable. In a quirk of scheduling prompted by Young’s death, the regular open primary for his seat will be held the same day as the special general election for his seat. That means Alaskans will be choosing someone to represent them in Washington for the next two years even as they also choose someone to represent them for the remainder of 2022. It could be the same person — or someone completely different. Senator Lisa Murkowski is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesThe Murkowski factorThe top-four system will also be used in Alaska’s Senate election, a fact that has spawned accusations of political intrigue.Former President Donald Trump has made it his mission to oust Murkowski, who is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger. Murkowski was one of only seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during the impeachment trial last year, earning her a rebuke from the state’s Republican Party. As an incumbent, she has the backing of Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, pitting the party’s establishment against its Trump wing.Tshibaka’s campaign team claims that the top-four system, which was adopted by ballot initiative in 2020, was devised to aid Murkowski’s re-election.There’s little evidence of that, though Kathryn Murdoch, an independent donor who helped fund the ballot initiative, said in an interview this month that the top-four system “allows Lisa Murkowski to be herself instead of worrying about her extreme right flank.”The claim prompts a chuckle from supporters of the system, who say that it is meant to alleviate the gridlock that often paralyzes Alaskan politics, and that it is not a product of Washington power games.“I haven’t talked to Lisa Murkowski in three or four years,” said Grenn, who is also a former state legislator. “There are no dark shadows behind the scenes.”What to read Republicans in Florida and Ohio are pushing for a greater advantage on their congressional maps.President Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2023 includes about $45 billion to take on climate change, which will be crucial to setting U.S. policy ahead of the midterms.California leaders are drafting legislation to help make the state a sanctuary for transgender youths and for people seeking abortions, as conservative states move forward with anti-abortion and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws.Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators have found growing evidence that a tweet by Donald Trump in December 2020 urging supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 was a catalyst for far-right militants.briefing bookJustice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Virginia Thomas, before he spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation in October.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe ballad of Clarence and GinniCongressional investigators want to know why Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, exchanged conspiracy-theory-tinged texts with Trump administration officials about overturning the 2020 election in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot. Democrats are calling for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any Supreme Court cases about the events of Jan. 6, while they press for more details about her involvement in that day’s drama.To better understand this unorthodox Washington pair, we chatted with Danny Hakim, an investigative reporter for The New York Times who recently wrote, with Jo Becker, a deeply reported Times Magazine article on the Thomases. Here’s our conversation:What first sparked your interest in them as a couple?The court has really moved toward Justice Thomas in the post-Trump era, since the pick of Amy Coney Barrett took place in the waning days of the Trump administration. For years, Justice Thomas was known for solo dissents or sharply written dissenting opinions, but now some of those might become majority opinions as the court’s dynamics have tilted.At the same time, his wife was a hard-line activist on the fringes of the party before she flourished in the Trump era, to the point she had direct access to the president. She has remained an important figure in the Trump wing of the party.There’s a line in your article that mentions that Ginni Thomas was in a group she later denounced as a “cult.” Were you able to learn anything more about her time there?The group was called Lifespring, and it was popular for a while. The best story I read about it was a 1987 piece in The Washington Post by Marc Fisher, who went to some meetings. The group would sort of break you down and get you crying and then try to build you back up, but it was quite controversial. One trainee told Fisher it was “like an enema of your emotions.”Ms. Thomas took part in the group in the early 1980s and then rejected it. And she took Clarence Thomas with her to at least one meeting of an anti-cult group that she attended in the wake of her departure from Lifespring.Ginni Thomas refers to her “best friend” in one of the texts that has emerged. Is it a leap to assume that’s a reference to her husband?We can’t say for sure, but they have used that kind of language when they describe each other. In his memoir, Justice Thomas refers to his wife as his “best friend.” She has called him “the best man walking the face of the Earth,” and friends of theirs whom we talked with told us they referred to each other that way. Justice Thomas has gone even further and called the two of them “one being — an amalgam.”Is your sense that Ginni Thomas is someone whose advice carries weight in the Republican Party, or is she someone who is humored because of her political connections and because of who her husband happens to be?It’s a good question. I think both. Her proximity to Justice Thomas is central to her influence, and it’s the reason she got the access she did to the Trump White House. She does not hesitate to invoke her husband’s name in her interactions with party officials and activists.At the same time, while establishment Republicans are often exasperated by her and see some of her views as outlandish, she does have a following among the hard-line wing of the party that is so prominent now, and she has spent years working in Washington alongside people like Steve Bannon to move the party to the right.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More