UPDATE:
Talk about bad timing:
State investigators are being urged to probe whether Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker violated the law by receiving a tax break on his Texas home meant for primary residents of that state even as he runs for federal office in Georgia.
The complaint filed Sunday by Ann Gregory Roberts asked the Attorney General’s office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation to “promptly investigate this apparent violation of Georgia law” ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff against U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Tax records show the former football player is set to receive a homestead exemption worth about $1,500 for a $3 million home in the suburbs of Dallas that Walker listed as his primary residence.
Walker’s campaign has declined requests for comment about the tax records, which were first reported by CNN. The documents show Walker has claimed the exemption since 2012.
The records brought new scrutiny to questions Walker has faced about his residency that precede his decision to formally run for office. He faces Warnock in a runoff after neither candidate won a majority of the vote in the November midterm.
A former Dallas Cowboys star, Walker lived in Texas for decades before registering to vote in Georgia in August 2021 shortly before he declared his candidacy.
At the time, Walker’s main GOP rival challenged him to “move here, pay taxes here, register and vote in some elections” before running. Warnock’s allies have taken a similar line of attack, framing the Republican as an out-of-state charlatan.
Also, this is just really fucking stupid:
The Herschel Walker campaign bus is logging serious miles around Georgia as he stumps for the U.S. Senate, and his travels must be taking him through Bryan County on Interstate 16 frequently.
Surely he must have noticed the 2,000-plus acres of cleared land behind the truck weigh station near Exit 143. The expanse is hard to miss, as are the dust clouds that drift across the highway from the construction equipment hard at work prepping the site.
The location is the future home of the Hyundai Metaplant America, an automobile assembly facility and battery manufacturing factory that will mean 8,000-plus new jobs. Suppliers to Hyundai will employ thousands more — already three parts makers have announced projects, promising a combined 2,400 jobs.
All this new job creation involves one specific product: Electric vehicles or EVs. The Hyundai Metaplant will build EVs exclusively, as will another facility planned for Georgia along Interstate 20, that one for Rivian. The Rivian plant estimates hiring 7,500 employees.
Right now, along Interstate 85 north of Athens, a factory that makes batteries for Ford’s all-electric F-150 Lightning is open and will employ 2,600 Georgians by the end of 2023.
It’s not hyperbole to say EVs are a new cornerstone of Georgia’s manufacturing economy. Clever journalists have already dubbed the state the “Battery Belt.”
Yet one high-profile Georgian stands against EVs: Would-be Sen. Walker.
Walker is campaigning against EVs. “I don’t want an electric car, I like my hot rod,” Walker told several hundred at an early November rally in Richmond Hill — a couple dozen miles away from the Hyundai site.
He doubled down following his second-place finish in the Nov. 8 election, telling a crowd in Peachtree City, “What we need to do is keep having those gas-guzzling cars. We got the good emissions under those cars.” He repeated the mantra in a stop in Augusta as well.
Walker is dissing EVs as part of a broader attack on what he calls “green new deal” policies championed by Democratic President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress, such as his runoff opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock.
But for all but the GOP zealots, the approach has less juice than an EV in need of a charge. Georgia leaders, who are overwhelmingly Republican, are behind the push to attract EV manufacturers and related businesses to the state.
Oh for fucks sake:
Senate hopeful Herschel Walker recently said former President Donald Trump has done more for the African American community "than the last four presidents put together," as early voting for Georgia's Senate race gets under way.
In September, Trump gave the former football star his endorsement in what is looking like a tight race against Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in December 6's runoff election.
Georgia law requires candidates to receive at least 50 percent of the vote to win an election, and neither Warnock nor Walker did so during the November 8 midterms. Warnock won about 49.4 percentage points, while Walker won about 48.5 percent of the vote, with libertarian Chase Oliver winning the remainder vote.
Walker told the conservative network Real America's Voice that he was "very honored" to get the former president's endorsement whom he praised for his contribution to the African American community.
"It's sad that our media have tried to say that this president didn't do anything for the African-American community when yet he did more for the African American community than the last four presidents put together," Walker said, referring to a list of White House occupants dating back to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. "He gave a lot of opportunities to a lot of the African American community, not just to the African American community but to the whole of the United States."
By the way, I think The Daily Beast and Mother Jones have done a terrific job reporting on Herschel Walker’s (R. GA) U.S. Senate campaign. At this point, we are all familiar with history of violence and how he threatened to kill his ex-wife. Abby Vesoulis at Mother Jones has a new piece out that highlights not just Walker’s violent past but also his past record defending his fellow athletes with a history of violence:
“[W]e shouldn’t kick these guys out because they belong in the League.”
In 2014, then-Ravens running back Ray Rice was filmed on a closed-circuit video hitting his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, until she was apparently unconscious, and then dragging her out of an elevator at an Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino. He was cut from the Ravens and later received an indefinite suspension from the NFL for the incident.
The same year, then-Vikings running back Adrian Peterson faced felony child abuse charges over an incident in which police said he used a wooden switch on his four-year-old son, resulting in injuries to his back, thighs, and one of his testicles. Peterson ultimately pleaded no contest to a reduced charge; he faced a temporary suspension from the Vikings.
In both cases, Walker sided with the football players.
On a 2015 appearance on the Dan Patrick Show, Walker said he was “upset” with the NFL for the “Ray Rice situation, the Adrian Peterson situation.” Walker continued, “When those guys got in trouble, the NFL sort of turned their backs on them…we [shouldn’t] kick these guys out, because they belong in the League.”
“My hat is off to him.”
Also in 2014, Carolina Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy was arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend. “[Hardy] unlawfully and willingly did assault [redacted], a female person, by GRABBING VICTIM AND THROWING TO THE FLOOR, THROWING INTO A BATHTUB, SLAMMING HER AGAINST A FUTON, AND STRANGLING HER,” a police officer wrote in the arrest warrant (emphasis theirs). In a motion for a protective order, the victim wrote that Hardy “choked me with both hands around my throat while I was lying on the floor. Hardy picked me up over his head and threw me onto a couch covered in assault rifles and/or shotguns. I landed on those weapons. Hardy bragged that all of those assault rifles were loaded.”
Hardy was found guilty of assault, but because his accuser stopped participating in Hardy’s appeal, the case was dismissed and his charges were eventually expunged.
Eventually, Hardy began fighting mixed martial arts, as Walker also did, and Walker has stayed in touch with the embattled former football player. “I have kept up with Greg [Hardy]. I’m happy to see football players that decide to do that. My hat is off to him,” Walker said on UFC Unfiltered in October 2021.
Mentoring a Bears’ player who was accused of abusing women eight times
In a 2012 Chicago Tribune story about the Bears’ new receiver, Brandon Marshall, Walker was named as a key “mentor” to Marshall. Marshall was accused at least eight times of violence against multiple women between 2006 and 2014. On one occasion, police arrived at Marshall’s home to find Marshall and his fiancée physically fighting each other on the sidewalk. (Both were charged with disorderly conduct, but they did not testify against each other, so the charges were dismissed.)
Vesoulis also brought this up:
Also, kudos to Vesoulis for bringing this up this past week:
Two years ago, Herschel Walker said that some state officials who certified Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump should go to jail.
At a campaign rally last weekend, Walker embraced one of the people he seemed to suggest should be locked up: Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who stumped with Walker in a last-ditch effort to to boost the ex-football star’s struggling campaign as he faces a run-off against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Though it didn’t get much attention during Walker’s scandal-plagued Senate bid, he went all in on the Big Lie in the aftermath of the 2020 election, promoting an assortment of election fraud conspiracy theories. In the days and weeks after the November 2020 presidential election, Walker called on the Supreme Court to step in to change the election results; advocated for seven states to throw out their election results and hold new elections; argued that there was “country wide election fraud”; and pleaded for Trump to figure out who “stole this election.”
On December 27, 2020, Walker also took aim at state officials for not doing more to keep Trump in the White House, tweeting that “any person that certified Votes for their state when their state may have had voter fraud but they turned a blind eye and did no research and certified anyway, they need to go to JAIL ASAP. Our Country was built on LAW AND ORDER.”
In Georgia, one of the places Walker alleged there was rampant fraud, the primary people involved in certifying the 2020 election results were Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Kemp.
Walker took issue with both of them. He called out Kemp by name for not doing more to overturn the election results. “Why Is @Briankempga Refusing To Ensure That Voter Signature Verification Was Enforced? Shows That Something Is Up,” Walker tweeted on December 18, 2020.
He criticized Raffensperger for the release of audio from his infamous call with Trump, in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” Trump enough votes to overturn the election. “The Secretary of State in GA leaked a call he had with @realDonaldTrump….An elected official leaking calls- does that not tell you the type of man we put in office?” Walker tweeted on Jan. 31, 2021.
But now, Walker is getting assistance from both Kemp and Raffensperger.
By the way, it seems like everyone is getting in dunking on Walker. From MSNBC’s Joy Reid:
Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker threw down the gauntlet this week when he challenged MSNBC’s Joy Reid to a debate after she mocked his “erection” gaffe on Fox News.
Reid accepted live on her show Wednesday, telling Walker he could appear on “The ReidOut” any day. But Walker is yet to publicly respond to the invite.
The exchange began Tuesday when the Donald Trump-endorsed Walker, who faces Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in a runoff election on Dec. 6, said “this erection” instead of “this election” during a Fox News appearance flanked by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
“The ancestors are weeping,” tweeted Reid. “And why does he always need these handlers (who can’t even stop him from embarrassing himself.) Just humiliating.”
To Jimmy Fallon:
In a monologue mostly dedicated to riffs on Thanksgiving – “Some of you are you excited to see your family while the rest of you are about to draw an extra line on a COVID test” – Fallon couldn’t help but dig into the former pro footballer-turned-senatorial candidate’s latest flub, in which he said “erection” instead of “election” live on-air.
“Well, first of all, this election is more than Herschel Walker. This erection is about the people,” Walker said on Fox News, snug between senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham. Of course, he intended to say “this election is for the people” – but then again, he’s never been much of a public speaker anyway.
“Last night, ahead of the Senate runoff in Georgia, Herschel Walker was on Fox News, and he had a bit of slip-up while talking about the election,” Fallon said in the set-up, concluding, “Woah! Somebody’s excited about the runoffs!”
Voting has already begun and only one candidate has been hitting the campaign hard:
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock hardly took any time off for Thanksgiving break, headlining six separate events scattered across metro Atlanta this weekend to pump up weekend voting. Meanwhile, Herschel Walker, his Republican opponent, hasn’t had a public event since last Tuesday.
Walker is back on the campaign trail on Monday with stops in Toccoa and Cumming, but his disappearing act less than two weeks before the Dec. 6 runoff baffled many of his Republican allies.
Warnock had a lopsided presence over the holiday on Georgia airwaves, too. Democrats have roughly doubled Republicans’ TV ad spending in the runoff period.
That meant anyone watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the Atlanta metro area, for example, would have seen multiple positive Warnock campaign spots, with a limited response from 34N22, the super PAC supporting Walker with ads featuring Gov. Brian Kemp.
Warnock made the most out of having the campaign trail to himself over the weekend. Among his events was a boisterous “Souls to the Polls” march on Sunday with a few hundred supporters, highlighting the failed attempt by the Georgia GOP and other Walker allies to restrict Saturday voting ahead of the runoff.
Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young helped lead the procession, and was joined by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Martin Luther King III.
When the group arrived at the polling place at Metropolitan Library in Southwest Atlanta, Warnock waited in line for about an hour with dozens of other voters before casting a ballot.