Last Minute Allegations, Attack PACs, and Veteran Candidates

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IN THE NEWS:
Any time big news breaks right before an election, that’s a big red flag. So the story we are about to talk about has a huge timing problem.
The Democratic primary in the 10th Congressional District is being rocked at the last possible minute by allegations from an anonymous woman who was a member of the Loudoun Democratic Committee who says the frontrunner in the primary, Delegate Dan Helmer, groped her breast at a political event in 2018. The first outlet to report on the story was NOTUS, which is associated with the Allbritton Journalism Institute. The Loudoun Times-Mirror also laid out all the known facts and the timeline. And now five of the other Democrats in the congressional primary are calling for Helmer to drop out of the race.
In this primary election, a PAC for Republican candidate Hung Cao has become a source of controversy for how it spent its money; another PAC has attracted attention because it was created to attack Democratic candidate Eileen-Filler-Corn. What's going on with PACs and their influence in Virginia politics?
In the 7th Congressional District, the candidates who have raised the most amount of money are veterans--Democrats and Republicans alike. Same thing in the neighboring 10th Congressional District in Loudoun County, where a bumper crop of candidates is vying for attention. We're actually in an era of comparatively few veterans in office, so what does this surge mean for the next generation of lawmakers?
TRIVIA: Which Virginia senator got into a duel with Henry Clay?

At the Watercooler:
- More on Lauren's experience with allegations against office-holders--and her critiques of the large media outlets that fail to do their due diligence.
- Secret recordings from Lauren Windsor of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, his wife, and Chief Justice Roberts. What are the ethics of secret recordings, how should media outlets use them, and is Windsor a journalist or an activist?
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