#dems won’t win with biden they might win with another nominee

[thetiredstuff]

I have a controversial opinion so gonna put it in the tags

[socialistgamergirl]

2024 US Senate Election Pre-Primary Predictions

Map guide

The states are colored according to which party (or Independent) I think will have the edge in the election. As it says in the title, primaries have not happened yet and most of these races don't have any polls, so this is purely an early prediction and I fully expect that I'll have to change it once it actually becomes 2024 and the political season really heats up.

The hue of the color indicates to what degree I think the party is favored, with grey states being considered "toss-ups" where I don't have any prediction at this point.

Darkest hue: "Safe" R, D, or I race. This means that I don't expect this race to be competitive at all.

Middle hue: "Likely" R, D, or I race. This means that I think this seat could be competitive if the year is major blue/red wave or there is a significant upset/change of circumstances, but most likely won't be.

Light hue: "Lean" R or D. This means that I believe one party is favored over the other, but not by that much. Expect these states to be targeted by both parties with funding/ads.

And Montana and West Virginia are marked as "Tilt R," which means that I think that Republicans have a good shot of flipping these seats, but the past strength these incumbents have shown makes it far from a sure thing.

Analysis

I won’t cover every state, because some of them just straight up don’t have anything interesting going on. But I will give my thoughts on the races which might have an interesting Democratic primary and/or general election. This will mostly be objective analysis but there are a few spots where I inject my personal opinion into it.

Arizona

Of every election here, this is probably the one I’m the least sure of in terms of how it will turn out.

Centrist Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party in early 2023 and is now serving the rest of her term as an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. She has yet to announce whether or not she will run for another term.

Representative Ruben Gallego is running for the Democratic nomination, spurred by Sinema’s votes in Congress which angered many in the party, such as voting against a voting rights act in a time where Dems couldn’t afford to lose a single vote on bills.

It’s not clear who the Republican nominee will be at this point, but police officer Mark Lamb is running, and other candidates, such as news anchor Kari Lake and hedge fund manager Blake Masters, may jump into the race.

The potential for a three-way race makes this election unconventional. Something similar happened in Connecticut in 2006, when centrist Senator Joe Lieberman won another term as Senator as an Independent.

However, it currently looks unlikely that Sinema will echo this success. Current preliminary polls show her trailing both Gallego and a potential Republican rival. Gallego currently leads in most hypothetical polls.

The state of Arizona used to be a Republican stronghold but has become a swing state in recent elections. Kyrsten Sinema was elected in 2018, flipping one of Arizona’s Senate seats that had been held by the retiring Jeff Flake. After the passing of the highly popular John McCain, who consistently soared to re-election with double-digit margins, a special election was held in 2020, in which Mark Kelly flipped Arizona’s other Senate seat, in the same year that Joe Biden narrowly won the state’s electoral votes. In 2022, Mark Kelly handily won a full term over Republican challenger Blake Masters, and the governorship was flipped by Katie Hobbs, who won against Kari Lake. Some commentators have attributed the string of recent Democratic victories to poor candidate quality on the Republican side¹. 

With the state now considerably bluer than in the past and Gallego leading in most polls, he has a very real shot of winning the election. Kyrsten Sinema running as an independent may hamper his vote total, although current polling shows that is not insurmountable. A Republican challenger could potentially win if a more electable Republican candidate is nominated. But if a far-right conspiratorial type like Lake or Masters is nominated again, it could be Gallego’s to lose.

That’s “if” though. With so many factors in play and so much that can change, I’m not comfortable making a pre-primary prediction on this race, so I consider it a toss-up.

¹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYO-xqm9omg

California

Longtime Senator Diane Feinstein is retiring and may even resign her seat before the election. Due to California’s strong Democratic lean and their open primary runoff system, the general election will most likely be a contest between two Democrats. US Representatives Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff are considered the main contenders to potentially follow her, with the possibility of Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, Representative Lou Correa, and governor Gavin Newsom later entering the race. Barbara Lee seems to be favorite candidate of progressives, earning endorsements from Reps. Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley, as well as some more establishment-oriented Democrats such as Rep. Jim Clyburn and Georgia State Rep Stacy Abrams. Meanwhile, Adam Schiff is seen as the most moderate/establishment candidate in the race, and Katie Porter (who has the endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren) falls somewhere in between.

At 76 years old, Barbara Lee’s age has been cited as a potential issue with her candidacy. She has pledged to only serve one term and act as a transitional Senator. Meanwhile, Katie Porter could potentially be hampered by allegations of a toxic work environment.

Delaware

At 76 years old (is there an echo in here?), Tom Carper may retire instead of running for another term, although he has not stated his intentions yet. If he chooses to retire, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Gov. John Carney are considered potential candidates for the Democratic nomination. The Democratic nominee will be heavily favored in the general election due to Delaware’s Democratic lean.

Florida

Former governor Rick Scott, who narrowly won election to the Senate in 2018, is considered vulnerable to a challenger, either from within the Republican Party or a Democrat, due to his unpopular move to propose a cut to Social Security early in 2023.¹ That said, Florida has been moving red in recent years. In 2018, the state’s races for governor and US Senate were narrowly won by Republicans, bucking a national blue wave. In 2020, Donald Trump overperformed expectations by winning Florida by several points, which many had forecasted to go to Joe Biden. This is often attributed to a movement among Hispanic Americans, especially the large Cuban-American population in Miami-Dade county, being influenced by Trump’s Red Scare tactics. In 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis and US Senator Marco Rubio both cruised to re-election by double digit margins, in an election year that mostly was better than expected for Democrats. These developments have led many to speculate that Florida may no longer be a true swing state.

Still, in a year in which pickup opportunities for Democrats will be slim, Florida is one of two Republican-held states, alongside Texas, that may be in play. While no serious Democratic candidate has entered the race yet, centrist Representative Stephanie Murphy is the most discussed potential candidate. Democratic victory in Florida is potentially possible with a new kind of candidate in the state, perhaps one who can win back some support from the state’s Hispanic population.

That said, with Florida’s recent red shift, I consider this to be a Lean R race.

¹https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3773788-rick-scott-faces-uncertain-future-after-bruising-midterm-year/

Maine

This election is an odd one. Independent Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, is running for re-election. Being a popular Independent incumbent, Maine’s ranked-choice voting system will likely favor him. That said, the possibility of a Democratic challenger is possible. Centrist Representative Jared Golden has been considered a possible challenger to King. If a Democratic candidate runs against King, it could create the weird scenario of Democrats being split on who to support in a general election.

Maryland

Ben Cardin is retiring, leaving a competitive Democratic primary for the seat in his wake. County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, Representative David Trone, and Representative Jamie Raskin (who has yet to enter the race as of now) are considered potential major candidates to succeed him, with several other candidates having entered or considering doing so as well. Angela Alsobrooks has been endorsed by a state senator named “Michael Jackson.” That’s not important at all, I just think that’s really funny.

Whoever the Democratic nominee is will likely meet an easy victory in the general election.

Michigan

Debbie Stabenow is retiring, complicating the dynamic of a race in a swing-y state. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who formerly worked for the CIA, is seen as a strong candidate for the Democratic nomination, although other candidates such as state representative Leslie Love are also running. Progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib is considered a potential candidate as well. The Israel-Palestine conflict is somewhat of a sore subject in the state of Michigan. In 2022, Andy Levin lost a Democratic primary to Haley Stevens after repeated attacks over his skepticism of Israel’s behavior towards Palestine. Given Tlaib’s at-times fiery rhetoric in favor of Palestine, as well as being of Palestinian heritage herself, these same forces could be a major roadblock for her should she choose to run for Senate.

Missouri

Many on election Twitter have speculated this race may be winnable for Democrats after Democratic candidate Lucas Kunce put out a well-received ad attacking Republican incumbent Josh Hawley. I am personally skeptical about this and consider it a Likely R race, with victory possible only in a blue wave scenario (which I don’t really expect to happen given how Biden’s presidency is going.)

Montana

This will be one of the toughest seats for Democrats to defend. Senator Jon Tester is running for re-election in a state that has recently gone for Republican candidates by large margins. Previously, the state had a tradition of voting for Democratic governors while voting for Republicans at the presidential level, which was bucked in 2020 when Republican Greg Gianforte won an open seat race, and governor Steve Bullock lost his bid against Steve Daines for the US Senate. This race is high stakes for Democrats, as losing it along with another seat in a state like West Virginia would give Republicans a Senate majority. Victory for Tester may hinge on his ties to Montana’s Native American population.¹  Jon Tester has also recently made an effort to appear more moderate and bipartisan in hopes of winning some crossover voters.

¹(https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/10/montanas-reservations-lean-blue-they-could-get-bluer/)

Nevada

Nevada is somewhat similar to Michigan, in that it’s a swing state that leans a bit towards the Democrats. On the national level, it has gone for the Democrats in every election since 2016. That said, Joe Lombardo’s win in the 2022 governor’s election shows that the state is still very much competitive. That said, I consider the incumbent, Jacky Rosen, the slight favorite to win re-election, but a strong enough Republican nominee could change this.

Ohio

Like Montana, Ohio is a state in which Democrats will be playing defense in enemy territory. Once a swing state, Ohio was won by Donald Trump by about eight points in both 2016 and 2020. That said, not all hope is lost for Democrats. In 2022, Democrats overperformed expectations in the state, with Representatives Greg Landsman and Emilia Sykes flipping two US House seats that had been forecasted as Likely Republican by 538. In addition, Tim Ryan lost the US Senate race by six points, which while still a loss, was a much closer race than expected. Also accounting for Sherrod Brown’s popularity, I expected this seat will be easier to hold on to for Democrats than Montana or West Virginia.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is in a similar situation as Michigan and Nevada, in that Republican success there has been scarce since Trump’s narrow win in 2016. Bob Casey Jr. won his previous re-election bid in 2018 by thirteen points, Joe Biden flipped the state back in 2020, and Democrats had a quite good midterm in the state in 2022, with governor Josh Shapiro winning an easy victory, and John Fetterman flipping the other Senate seat by five points. For me, this is an easy Lean D, verging on Likely D.

Texas

Texas is arguably the best pickup opportunity for Democrats in 2024, although that isn’t saying much. Once a Republican stronghold, Texas has been shifting more purple in recent years due to demographic changes, although it still firmly leans towards the Republicans. The state has shifted from going to Romney by 12 points in 2012, to going to Trump by 8 and then 6 points in 2016 and 2020. Throughout this, however, Republicans have continued to do well at the state level, with governor Greg Abbott winning re-election by 10 points in 2022.

The controversial Senator Ted Cruz barely won his re-election in 2018 after Beto O’Rourke put up a strong fight. To flip the seat in a year which may not be as favorable for the Democrats as 2018 was, a strong candidate needs to build upon this success. So far, Rep. Colin Allred has entered the race, and there’s some speculation that state Sen. Roland Gutierrez and Rep. Joaquin Castro may enter the fray later. ¹

¹https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-colin-allred-have-what-it-takes-to-beat-ted-cruz-in-2024/

West Virginia

In a state that has shifted overwhelmingly to the Republican side, with recent elections frequently being 30-point blowouts in favor the respective Republican candidate, Joe Manchin has, so far, bucked this trend with his centrist or even conservative politics. Currently 75 years old, he has yet to announce whether he will run for another term or not. If he does, he may face a tough rival in the state’s current governor Jim Justice, a popular Democrat-turned-Republican. If he does opt to retire, the race is most likely the eventual Republican candidate’s to lose.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is maybe the purest swing state in the nation right now. The margins of both Donald Trump’s win in 2016 and Joe Biden’s win in 2020 in the state were razor thin, and 2022 saw a split result, with Democrat Tony Evers winning another term as the state’s governor, and Republican Ron Johnson winning another term in the state’s other US Senate seat. That said, Tammy Baldwin’s popularity and incumbent status gives her a slight edge heading into this race.

[maiden-of-wolves]

For all of you Bernie or Busters

I love Bernie, I donated monthly to his campaign virtually since it began this time around, I phone banked for him, I voted for him before he dropped out. I wanted him to win more than anything and I felt a sense of elation when he swept through the first few states.

But, my friends, that is gone.

Our streets are on fire and peacfully protesting citizens are under threat by our own military, police and mercenaries at the behest of Trump.

You cannot tell me that Biden is worse than Trump now without being brutishly tone-deaf to what’s going on and just straight up wrong on every level.

You cannot reasonably tell me that it’s not worth holding our damn noses and doing the only thing that might be left to us that might actually stop this absolute narcisistic manbaby dictator in office.

Stop listening to people like Kyle (Kulinski) [who retweets shit from Dave Rubin unironically so that should tell you who you’re listening to] and Jimmy (Dore) as they tell you that it won’t matter if Trump wins again. That it will usher in the revoltuion when the ‘centrists’ finally have enough. It won’t. There won’t be a social safety net to expand. There won’t be any semblance of democracy to harden. The supreme court will be lost to us for my entire life. Abortion, social safety nets, voting itself are all things that would be up for debate if Trump puts two more justices on the court. He specificially says that he will put in judges against a woman’s right to choose - and frankly fuck you for essentially saying that’s not important by insisting Trump get another 4 years.

The centrists aren’t the problem right now. It’s the people that don’t vote or people that hold out a vain hope that 3rd parties will actually gain popularity. You think that Jill Stien or Gary Johnson will even scrape a single cell of the sole of a foot close to meeting this moment? Nevermind actually only having a tiny 0.000001% chance of winning? If you do, you need to intensely reevaluate how you look at situations.

Progressives will get more out of democrats than they will Trump. That is an undeniable fact. Not doing everything you can possibly do at this point to get this monster out of office is like that meme where the dude fucks up his own bike and leg only to blame it on something completely out of the picture.

Now is not the time to be preoccupied with “the lesser of two evils is still evil” arguments. In normal times, I’d be right there with you. This is not that.

Now is not the time to call Bernie a cuck because he sees that it’s not good for the country for the Dems to be fighting during absolute chaos.

Be a goddamn GROWN UP. For the sake of your country,

#1) FUCKING VOTE !

#2) HOLD YOU NOSE, VOTE FOR WHOEVER THE DEM NOMINEE IS

#3) MAKE SURE TO VOTE DOWN BALLOT

THERE ARE A LOT OF PROGRESSIVES RUNNING THIS TIME AROUND THAT NEED US. IT’S THESE PEOPLE WE NEED TO MAKE M4A AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL + ANYTHING ELSE WE WANT TO PUSH A REALITY. A PRESIDENT CANNOT DO THIS ALONE.

Also, if you need something to cling to that makes you feel a tiny bit better about having to hold your nose - watch Joe make an empassioned speech in committee about our response to Aparthied in South Africa - frankly, it’s an excoration on par with AOC and Katie Porter. You want to keep bringing up bad shit about him - it’s about time you see something great. I didn’t even believe it at first, but it’s in C-SPAN’s archives.

[patriotsnet]

Are There More Democrats Or Republicans In The Senate

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/are-there-more-democrats-or-republicans-in-the-senate/

Are There More Democrats Or Republicans In The Senate

Senate Democrats Republicans Prepare To Sell Nearly $1 Trillion Infrastructure Deal To White House

The Washington Post

Congressional lawmakers are set to return to the Capitol on Monday facing a pivotal week for the future of infrastructure reform, as bipartisan negotiations continue and work proceeds to advance a flurry of bills to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections.

At the center of the debate is an infrastructure compromise brokered by 10 Senate Democrats and Republicans. The bloc, largely composed of moderates, faces the new, tough task of selling their deal to both fellow lawmakers and the White House, just days after talks between President Biden and another group of GOP leaders reached a political impasse.

“We’re talking to folks, one by one, and just asking folks to be open,” said Sen. Mitt Romney in advance of the new plan’s release.

Ten Senate Democrats and Republicans say they reached five-year, nearly $1 trillion infrastructure deal

Some Democrats already have expressed discomfort with the early details of the nearly $1 trillion, five-year package, arguing it should be bigger and more robust in scope. Republicans, meanwhile, signaled there may not be widespread support for it within their own party, either. The White House said at the end of last week it has “questions” about lawmakers’ approach, as fresh concerns emerged over the potential changes to the gas tax that could help finance the new proposal.

TODAY

White House infrastructure talks with Capito collapse, leading to fingerpointing as Biden shifts strategy

Why Democrats Didn’t Take The Senate Despite Winning 11 Million More Votes Than Republicans

Although Republicans retained control of the Senate during this year’s midterm elections, Democrats actually earned about 11 million more votes.

Reported vote counts show that Democratic Senate candidates this year thus far have won roughly 44 million votes, whereas Republican Senate candidates have earned 33 million, per The Washington Post. That means about 57 percent of the total votes cast went for Senate Democrats. Despite those stats, Republicans managed to flip three seats, bolstering their majority.

Although it might initially sound galling that Democrats earned more votes but didn’t get the majority, there’s a reason for that: 35 Senate seats were on the ballot this year, and of those, 26 of them were held by Democrats, while only nine were held by Republicans. The fact that most of the seats up for re-election were Democratic made the party more vulnerable to suffer losses, which Sens. Heidi Heitkamp , Joe Donnelly , and Claire McCaskill did.

Opinionhow Can Democrats Fight The Gop Power Grab On Congressional Seats You Won’t Like It

Facing mounting pressure from within the party, Senate Democrats finally hinted Tuesday that an emboldened Schumer may bring the For the People Act back for a second attempt at passage. But with no hope of GOP support for any voting or redistricting reforms and Republicans Senate numbers strong enough to require any vote to cross the 60-vote filibuster threshold, Schumer’s effort will almost certainly fail.

Senate Democrats are running out of time to protect America’s blue cities, and the cost of inaction could be a permanent Democratic minority in the House. Without resorting to nuclear filibuster reform tactics, Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be presiding over a devastating loss of Democrats’ most reliable electoral fortresses.

Max Burns is a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Find him on Twitter @themaxburns.

Incoming Biden Administration And Democratic House Wont Have To Deal With A Republican

Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff wave to supporters during a joint rally on Nov. 15 in Marietta, Ga.

1.285%

Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have defeated Georgia’s two incumbent Republican U.S. senators in the state’s runoff elections, the Associated Press said Wednesday, in a development that gives their party effective control of the Senate.

Ossoff and Warnock were projected the winners over Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler by the AP following campaigns that drew massive spending and worldwide attention because the runoffs were set to determine the balance of power in Washington. The AP , at about 2 a.m. Eastern, then followed with the call for Ossoff over Perdue on Wednesday afternoon.

President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration and the Democratic-run House of Representatives now won’t face the same checks on their policy priorities that they would have faced with a Republican-controlled Senate, though analysts have said the slim Democratic majority in the chamber could mean more power for moderate senators from either party.

See:With sweep expected in Georgia Senate races, Democrats have high hopes for what Biden can do

“It is looking like the Democratic campaign machine was more effective at driving turnout than the Republican one,” said Eurasia Group analyst Jon Lieber in a note late Tuesday.

Warnock then made just before 8 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

Poll Shows Manchin Wildly Out Of Step With West Virginia Voters On Voting Rights Bill

A hail fellow well met

DP Veteran

A hail fellow well met

DP Veteran

roguenuke said:I think this is the most likely answer just in terms of the Senate races .The GOP seats are more likely to be in danger here than the Dem seats that are up but that doesn’t mean that there still isn’t risk, especially being so close.

#37

A summer-long advocacy campaign to rally voters to support the For the People Act, a federal election bill.You can get involved by calling yourSenators at 888-453-3211 / and Zipcodeor any Senator??? Just get their Home Zipcode

With Control Of White House And Congress Democrats Have 2 Years To Make Big Changes

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U.S. Democrats secured unified control of the White House and Congress on Wednesday with the inauguration of President Joe Biden followed by Vice President Kamala Harris swearing in three new Democratic senators.

The three new senators bring the U.S. Senate to a 50-50 Democratic-Republican tie, with Harris as the presiding officer representing the tie-breaking vote.

With the U.S. House continuing under the leadership of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden begins his term with the opportunity to work with the two Democrat-controlled chambers to enact significant legislative changes. 

As a result of the shifting political power on Capitol Hill, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has succeeded Republican Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader. The Kentucky senator, who served in the top leadership post for six years, was highly skilled at blocking Democratic legislation, as well as advancing former President Donald Trump’s judicial and administration nominees through the confirmation process. 

Schumer acknowledged some of those challenges Wednesday in his first speech as majority leader.

“This Senate will tackle the perils of the moment: a once-in-a-generation health and economic crisis. And it will strive to make progress on generations-long struggle for racial justice, economic justice, equality of opportunity and equality under the law,” Schumer said.

Democrats Can Win In States We Now Consider Deep Red And Not That Long Ago They Did

The polls were promising; the money was pouring in by the tens of millions. From Maine to Alaska, Republican incumbents were facing losses that would turn the Senate blue. It was even tight in Kansas, which last sent a Democrat to the Senate in 1932.

arrow-right

Instead, after an election that saw incumbent after incumbent roll to victory by double-digit pluralities, and with Democrats needing two runoff wins in Georgia just to achieve a 50-50 tie that soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris would break, a familiar lament is circulating yet again: The Senate is, as Vox put it, inherently “anti-democratic” — and un-Democratic, making it all but impossible for the party representing a majority of voters to win power in the chamber. Only reforming the structure of the Senate, which gives each state the same number of senators no matter how many people live there, can fix this. wrote in 2018, and the Baffler made the same call this September.)

But in reality, the Senate isn’t quite the unsolvable problem that Democratic critics think it is. The chamber’s current Republican tilt is political, not structural — and it could be overcome without any changes to the Constitution. The Democrats just have to start winning elections.

Abolish the Senate. It’s the only way to rein in modern presidents.

Biden can still get things done with a Republican Senate. Here’s how.

Twitter: @greenfield64

Senate Democrats Advance Their ‘generational Transformation’ With Republican Help

Susan Jones

– After passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill on a 69-30 vote Tuesday — 19 Republicans joining all the Democrats — the Senate worked into the early morning hours, finally passing a much larger, $3.5 trillion budget resolution, this time with only Democrat votes.

The budget resolution eventually will contain the Democrats’ plan for a “generational transformation” of the U.S. economy, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted early Wednesday morning.

“Senate Democrats just passed our budget resolution to provide historic investments in American jobs, American families, and the fight against climate change,” Schumer wrote. “It puts us on track to bring a generational transformation to how our economy works for average Americans.”

The budget resolution passed 50-49. It is the first step in the reconciliation process that may allow Democrats to ram through their entitlement/green energy agenda with only 51 votes.

Various Democrat-led committees will now write the actual language to be voted on in the next step of the reconciliation process.

Democrats have made it very clear that the bipartisan infrastructure bill will not come up for a vote unless the larger reconciliation bill passes. It’s an all-or-nothing package, two halves of Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” whole, in other words.

“They also have hundreds of billions of dollars in slush funds,” he continued:

When Will We Know If Democrats Or Republicans Control The United States Senate

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., leaves the chamber after a procedural vote to advance the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020.

– Could the Democrats pack the courts or get rid of the Senate filibuster during a Biden Presidency? Those topics were heavily debated during the run-up to the 2020 Election, but they may prove moot – even if Biden wins – with more Democratic losses in the Senate.

Republicans trounced Democratic challengers in crucial states but failed to lock down the seats needed to retain their tenuous majority as of Thursday. In fact, a clear picture of Senate control may not come until 2021.

One race in Georgia is headed to a January runoff. A second contest in Georgia and races in North Carolina and Alaska remain undecided, leaving the chamber now deadlocked 48-48.

“We’re waiting — whether I’m going to be the majority leader or not,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday.

If current leads in Alaska and North Carolina hold for Republicans, they will at least guarantee a 50-50 split. That scenario would allow the next vice president to serve as the tiebreaker on strictly partisan votes.

Nevada still to close to call in presidential race, votes still being counted in largest county

Republican control in the Senate would split power, making it more difficult for Biden or Trump to pass significant legislation without winning bipartisan support.

Eric Holder: There Is Still A Fight For Democrats Against Gop Gerrymandering

In McConnell’s Kentucky, for instance, Republicans are divided over how far to go during the upcoming redistricting process, which they control in the deep-red state. The more extreme wing wants to crack the Democratic stronghold of Louisville, currently represented by Rep. John Yarmuth. More cautious Republicans like McConnell are willing to settle for smaller changes that reduce Democratic margins while stuffing more Republican voters into hotly contested swing districts.

Make no mistake: McConnell’s caution isn’t rooted in any newfound respect for the integrity of our electoral process. Instead, Republicans are mainly worried about avoiding the costly and embarrassing court decisions that invalidated their most extreme overreaches and potentially turn the line-drawing over to the courts. So McConnell’s approach doesn’t reject partisan gerrymandering — it just avoids the type of high-profile city-cracking that could land the Kentucky GOP in federal court.

Who Is Richer Democrats Or Republicans The Answer Probably Wont Surprise You

Which of the two political parties has more money, Democrats or Republicans? Most would rush to say Republicans due to the party’s ideas towards tax and money. In fact, polls have shown about 60 percent of the American people believe Republicans favor the rich. But how true is that?  can help you write about the issue but read our post first.

Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor

For instance, in 2020, Yarmuth won his Louisville district with a comfortable 62.7 percent of the vote. By turning Yarmuth’s single district into portions of two or three new districts, Republicans could turn his safe blue seat into swing districts and safe Republican strongholds. But the naked politicking of that kind of move would invite dozens of court challenges from outraged Democrats and election integrity organizations, tying up GOP time and treasure in the middle of campaign season.

Yet relying on the Republican-aligned Supreme Court to find a remedy is a gamble that could just as easily backfire on Democrats. In the 2019 case Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservative majority ruled 5-4 that Congress, not the federal courts, must address partisan gerrymandering. As a result, half a dozen Democrat-filed federal cases were tossed out and the gerrymandered district maps allowed to stand. More outcomes like that would be catastrophic both for Democrats and democracy.

For now, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee is fighting back against Republican efforts in a flurry of high-profile lawsuits. The organization, chaired by former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., has said it is committed to countering the Republican plan to split up blue cities.

Privilege And Entitlement Starting On Third Base Is Deserving A Home Run

The elites of certain churches, universities, private schools or ethnicities may unconsciously accept their position as any crowned head assumed the “divine right of kings”. Growing up inside such an elite seems natural and right; those in power enable others like themselves. If they studied hard and played on the football team, compared to their classmates who did not work as hard, they know they are deserving. For one in that position, it’s a forgivable failure of imagination to not consider that the student across town who also worked hard and perhaps did not achieve the same SAT scores, may have often gone to bed hungry, may have surmounted far greater obstacles to achieve a lot – capacity and determination which should be counted in. The privileged may not see the distortions that benefit them. This is not confined to one party, one class, one ethnicity, one gender. Some of us simply benefit from a surfeit of privilege.

Off with their heads is not an answer. Possible answers include: wealth tax; higher marginal inheritance taxes; and crediting overcoming the privilege deficit, without demonizing people who won the birth lottery – a 21st-century rework of affirmative action.

Looking to make a difference? Consider signing one of these sponsored petitions:*Rantt Media may receive compensation from the partners we feature on our site. However, this in no way affects our news coverage, analysis, or political 101’s.

6. Their life experiences open the corruption door.

Democrats Got Millions More Votes So How Did Republicans Win The Senate

Senate electoral process means although Democrats received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, that does not translate to more seats

The 2018 midterm elections brought , who retook the House of Representatives and snatched several governorships from the grip of Republicans.

But some were left questioning why Democrats suffered a series of setbacks that prevented the party from picking up even more seats and, perhaps most consequentially, left the US Senate in Republican hands.

Among the most eye-catching was a statistic showing Democrats led Republicans by more than 12 million votes in Senate races, and yet still suffered losses on the night and failed to win a majority of seats in the chamber.

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process.

Because each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, states such as Wyoming have as many seats as California, despite the latter having more than 60 times the population. The smaller states also tend to be the more rural, and rural areas traditionally favor Republicans.

This year, because Democrats were defending more seats, including California, they received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, but that does not translate to more seats.

However, some expressed frustration with a system they suggest gives an advantage to conservative-leaning states.

Read more

Us Senate Representation Is Deeply Undemocratic And Cannot Be Changed

Few, if any, other “democracies” have anything this undemocratic built into their systems.

The U.S. Senate, as you know, is currently divided 50-50 along party lines, thanks to the impressive double win in Georgia, and counting the two technically “independent” senators as Democrats, since they caucus with the Democrats.

But, according to the calculation of Ian Millhiser, writing for Vox, if you add up the population of states and assign half to each of their two senators, “the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.”

Millhiser’s piece is named after that fact: “America’s anti-democratic Senate, in one number.”

41.5 million. That’s a lot of people, more than 10 percent of the population . You might think that in a democracy, the party that held that much of an advantage might end up with a solid majority in the Senate, rather than have just barely eked out a 50-50 tie in a body that, taken together, represents the whole country.

Republicans have not won the majority of the votes cast in all Senate races in any election cycle for a long time. Nonetheless, Republicans held majority control of the Senate after the elections of 2014, and 2016 and 2018 and still, after the 2020 races, held 50 of the 100 seats.

GOP does better in lower population states

Works to the detriment of Democratic power

It’s deeply undemocratic. Nothing can become federal law without passing the Senate.

Smaller states had to be reassured

Democrat Jon Ossoff Claims Victory Over David Perdue In Georgia Runoff

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is expected to replace GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell as majority leader and will determine which bills come to the floor for votes.

The ambitious proposals addressing climate change and health care and other domestic priorities touted by Biden and Harris will be difficult, if impossible, to advance with more moderate Democrats — especially those facing competitive 2022 midterm reelection campaigns — reluctant to sign onto partisan proposals. The much smaller-than-anticipated House Democratic majority compounds the challenge for the party.

Instead, Biden will need to consider which domestic priorities can get bipartisan support since Senate rules now require anything to get 60 votes to advance. The president-elect has already indicated that additional coronavirus relief will be his first priority, but he has also said he plans to unveil an infrastructure plan that could get support from Republicans.

In a statement Wednesday, Biden said that “Georgia’s voters delivered a resounding message yesterday: they want action on the crises we face and they want it right now. On COVID-19, on economic relief, on climate, on racial justice, on voting rights and so much more. They want us to move, but move together.”

The president-elect also spoke to Democrats’ potential total control of Washington.

Senate Democrats Advance $35 Trillion Budget With No Republican Votes

Democrats in the Senate early Aug. 11 passed a $3.5 trillion budget framework with no support from Republicans, though its final passage isn’t assured.

The budget was advanced 50–49, with all votes in favor coming from Democrats or nominal independents who regularly vote with the left.

All Republicans voted against the budget except for Sen. Mike Rounds , who was at the Mayo Clinic with his wife, Jean, who is undergoing cancer treatments, he said on Aug. 10.

The budget was sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders , a self-described democratic socialist who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

“This legislation will not only provide enormous support unprecedented in recent American history for the children in our country, for the parents in our country, to the elderly people in our country, to the working families of our country, but it will also, I hope, restore the faith of the American people in the belief that we can have a government that works for all of us and not just a few,” Sanders said on the Senate floor in Washington.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer added, “Senate Democrats just took a massive step towards restoring the middle class in the 21st century and giving Americans, more Americans, the chance to get there.”

The procedural vote followed hours of debate and consideration of amendments, starting on the afternoon of Aug. 10 and wrapping up shortly before 4 a.m. on Aug. 11.

Republicans denounced the budget, which has yet to be drafted.

Why Democratic Departures From The House Have Republicans Salivating

A growing number of Democrats in battleground districts are either retiring or leaving to seek higher office, imperiling the party’s control of the House and President Biden’s expansive agenda.

WASHINGTON — With 18 months left before the midterms, a spate of Democratic departures from the House is threatening to erode the party’s slim majority in the House and imperil President Biden’s far-reaching policy agenda.

In the past two months, five House Democrats from competitive districts have announced they won’t seek re-election next year. They include Representative Charlie Crist of Florida, who on Tuesday launched a campaign for governor, and Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who will run for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman. Three other Democrats will leave vacant seats in districts likely to see significant change once they are redrawn using the data from the 2020 Census, and several more are weighing bids for higher office.

An early trickle of retirements from House members in competitive districts is often the first sign of a coming political wave. In the 2018 cycle, 48 House Republicans didn’t seek re-election — and 14 of those vacancies were won by Democrats. Now Republicans are salivating over the prospect of reversing that dynamic and erasing the Democrats’ six-seat advantage.

“It’s like going to war on a battlefield but you don’t know where you’re fighting, when you’re fighting or who you’re fighting,” Mr. Israel said.

Democrats Hold $30 Million Ad Advantage In Battle For Senate Control

Democrats in crucial Senate races across the country are swamping the airwaves with ads in the furious battle for control of the chamber, far outpacing Republican spending as their party grows more bullish about their prospects for retaking the majority.

In battleground states nationwide, Democratic candidates and outside groups have been inundating the air with ads, promoting their records, seeking to distinguish themselves during their own competitive primaries and bashing the GOP senators whose seats they seek to occupy.

In 12 races that will determine the next Senate majority, Democrats have spent roughly $30 million more on the airwaves than their Republican counterparts, according to a CNN review of data from Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis. In total, Democrats – including campaigns and outside groups – have spent $109 million on television, radio and digital advertisements, compared with $79 million for Republicans since the beginning of the election cycle last year, the records show.

While some of the disparity is due to Democrats attacking each other during the party’s primaries, both sides are keenly aware that Republicans have been outspent on the airwaves so far. Top Republicans expect the gap to close as the elections draw nearer.

“The entire business community and America’s job creators will all be on the Schumer menu next year,” he added.

Schumer, exuding his party’s growing confidence, told CNN last month: “We will win the Senate.”

What Limitations Will Senate Democrats Face In Passing Legislation

Most proposed legislation can be filibustered by members of the minority party, which means 60 members must agree to end debate and move the bill to a final vote.

The use of the Senate filibuster has become increasingly more common since the 1700s and is now a routine way of obstructing legislation. Concerns about increasing partisan gridlock have sparked debate over whether to reform the legislative filibuster, which would give the majority party vast authority to pass bills. During the recent filibuster debate between McConnell and Schumer, President Joe Biden remained silent on the issue. Other lawmakers in the past, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have called to do away with it.

But advocates for keeping the filibuster said it preserves power for the minority party. Removing the filibuster could also backfire on Democrats if they lose control of the Senate again. As of now, Democrats do not have the votes to end the filibuster but could also consider lowering the threshold, for example from 60 members to 55.

Senate filibuster use over time. Graphic by Danny Davis and Kate Grumke/PBS NewsHour.

“There are some very narrow rules around it. … It has to have budgetary implications. You can’t just stick on any random thing. It has to actually be pretty narrowly tailored,” Powell said.

Senate Democrats Ram $35 Trillion Budget Without Republican Vote

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Democrats in the Senate presented a $3.5 trillion budget early Wednesday, with no support from Republicans.

The budget was passed 50–49, with all votes in favor of either the Democrats or nominally independents, who regularly voted with the Left.

All Republicans voted against the budget except Sen. Mike Rounds . He said Tuesday that he is at Mayo Clinic with his wife, Jean, who is being treated for cancer.

NS Budget Bernie Sanders , a self-described socialist who is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

“This law will not only provide support unprecedented in recent American history for the children in our country, for the parents in our country, for the elderly people in our country, for the working families of our nation, but also “I hope, restore the faith of the American people in the belief that we can have a government that works for all of us, not just some,” Sanders said on the Senate floor in Washington.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Senate Democrats have taken a major step toward restoring the middle class in the 21st century and giving Americans, more Americans a chance to get there.”

The passage began on Tuesday afternoon after hours of debate and voting on amendments to the budget and ended shortly before 4 a.m. on Wednesday.

The House of Representatives, which Democrats also control, is set to take measures during the week of August 23, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told aides this week.

.

Tags

Are There More Democrats Than Republicans In The United States

I have been thinking about the Democratic Party and whether or not its members are more numerous than the opposing faction.

Evidence to suggest this is the case:

This party is expected to win the popular vote for president seven out of eight times since 1992. Please don’t say “this hasn’t happened yet”. If this bothers you, say 6 out of 7.

The party has received 51.9 percent of the votes cast in presidential elections from 1992 to 2016 for it or its opponent, the Republican Party. This shows that 2012 was the mean election in popular vote as of 2016.

Party registration in states that register by party says this same thing.

Trump’s approval has not gone above 50 percent ever as president on 538.

A plurality of Americans consistently supported impeachment by 2 to 5 points while it was happening.

This suggests that the partisan lean the American electorate is about D+4. I believe that it might be closer to D+5 now for various reasons and the fact that 2012 was the mean result. This can get a little bit fuzzy because of independents.

Active Oldest Votes

If we look at opinion polling, Gallup has collated party affiliation polls back to 2004. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a D+11 advantage. Looking just at the net Republican/Democrat advantage, ignoring Independents, we can create the graph below – with positive percentages representing a Democrat lead, and negative percentages representing a Republican lead.

To give a theoretical perspective on this:

Were Republicans Really The Party Of Civil Rights In The 1960s

Harry J Enten

With Republicans having trouble with minorities, some like to point out that the party has a long history of standing up for civil rights compared to Democrats. Democrats, for example, were less likely to vote for the civil rights bills of the 1950s and 1960s. Democrats were more likely to filibuster. Yet, a closer look at the voting coalitions suggests a more complicated picture that ultimately explains why Republicans are not viewed as the party of civil rights.

Let’s use the 1964 Civil Rights Act as our focal point. It was arguably the most important of the many civil rights bills passed in the middle part of the 20th century. It outlawed many types of racial and sexual discrimination, including access to hotels, restaurants, and theaters. In the words of Vice President Biden, it was a big “f-ing deal”.

When we look at the party vote in both houses of Congress, it fits the historical pattern. Republicans are more in favor of the bill:

80% of Republicans in the House and Senate voted for the bill. Less than 70% of Democrats did. Indeed, Minority Leader Republican Everett Dirksen led the fight to end the filibuster. Meanwhile, Democrats such as Richard Russell of Georgia and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina tried as hard as they could to sustain a filibuster.

Put another way, party affiliation seems to be somewhat predictive, but something seems to be missing. So, what factor did best predicting voting?

[popolitiko]

To Honor Ginsburg, Democrats Have One Choice: Go Nuclear

They will have to bring a bazooka to the GOP’s gun fight.

David CornWashington, DC, Bureau ChiefBio  | Follow

Mother Jones Daily

It’s a popular sentiment on the left: Don’t mourn, organize. But with the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that won’t be enough. Ginsburg, a hero of female empowerment and of the Supreme Court, deserves much mourning. But Democrats and progressives can waste no time prepping for the battle royal that lies ahead. After all, it took Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mere minutes after the news of RBG’s passing to declare that the GOP-controlled Senate will vote on whoever Donald Trump sends its way to fill the Supreme Court vacancy—a direct eff-you to the Democrats after McConnell in 2016 refused to consider President Barack Obama’s SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland with the phony-baloney argument that the Senate should not consider new justices during an election year. So yes, Dems will have to organize, but they must do more: They have to get ready to rumble.

Yes, Dems will have to organize, but they must do more: They have to get ready to rumble.

What is coming, at least as the Republicans see it, is a grand political clash. They have been hellbent on reshaping the entire federal judiciary and especially drool over the prospect of locking the highest court into a right-wing course that will last decades and counter demographic trends that favor Democrats. This is their Holy Grail. After all, nothing galvanizes conservative evangelical voters more than the courts. For political consultants, it has long been conventional wisdom that right-wingers obsess over the composition of the courts and the Supreme Court far more than progressives. So Ginsburg’s departure is a gift for Trump. If there has been any erosion occurring on the edges of his conservative and evangelical base, his effort to shove another anti-choice, pro-corporate conservative on to the highest court could certainly shore up that ground for him. Here’s something Trump can campaign on for the next six and a half weeks, without breaking a sweat or fielding a tough question. It’s his lifeline. A cure for his coronavirus problem.

It will be bare-knuckles politics from the right. Do or die. By any means necessary. To replace Ginsburg with a young right-wing extremist. And for the Democrats to have a chance of thwarting them, they must realize that this fight is not only a matter of persuasion. They will not win by writing well-reasoned op-eds. Cable host tirades will be of little use. Panel discussions will be irrelevant. Clever ads highlighting GOP hypocrisy won’t do the trick. Angry editorials in the New York Times won’t help. Not even a freckin’ David Brooks column (“conservatives should realize they have an interest in preserving democratic norms!“) will do them any good. Passionate speeches on the floor of the US Senate? Fuggedabout it.

This is about power.

Sure, the Democrats and influential voices in the political media world might focus on a few GOP senators and, appealing to that good ol’ American sense of fair play, urge them to preserve institutional norms and refuse to go along with McConnell’s night ride against democratic governance. But that is a long shot. Susan Collins, hero of the Republic? Do you want to bet? (She did tell a reporter earlier this month she would not seat a Supreme Court justice in October and would oppose doing so in a lame duck session if Biden wins. Yet…) Mitt Romney might be willing to throw his body on the tracks. And Lisa Murkowski has already said (before Ginsburg’s death) she won’t vote to confirm a new SCOTUS appointee until after the inauguration. But if the Dems round up this trio, you got a tie, with Veep Mike Pence eager to break the deadlock to please his lord and his Lord. Are there other Rs willing to derail the Trump-McConnell express? Don’t wager the mortgage. (One interesting wrinkle: If Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly defeats incumbent Sen. Martha McSally on November 3 in what is a special election, he could be immediately sworn in, and the Democrats might pick up a vote. But don’t think for a moment that McConnell hasn’t already taken that possibility into account.)

It will be bare-knuckles politics from the right. Do or die. By any means necessary.

The win-over-reasonable-Republicans-with-reason strategy is weak sauce. That leaves the Democrats with one other choice: total political warfare. The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer—with the backing of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi—needs to threaten massive retaliation. Should McConnell try to ram a Trump nominee through, Schumer ought to vow that the Democrats, if they win back the Senate and Biden is elected president, will demolish the filibuster, which will allow the Senate to proceed to make Washington, DC, a state (two more senators, who are likely to be Democrats!) and that they will move to add two or four more seats to the Supreme Court. (There is nothing in the Constitution that limits the court’s size to the current nine justices.) In other words: They will implement a Republican nightmare (which, as it happens, can be justified on arguments of equity and fairness).

Schumer should utter this declaration publicly to lock the Democrats in. Of course, this could further propel Republicans to the polls. But it might do the same with Democrats. (The stakes in this election are now higher than they already were.) Crucially, there would need to be buy-in from Biden. The veteran Washington player will have to put aside his somewhat admirable (if misguided) desire to return to the older and more genteel means of legislating and compromising in the nation’s capital. But with conservative voters fired up by the dream of replacing Ginsburg with a thirtysomething right-wing firebrand, the Dems will have to counter with more than a this-isn’t-fair argument. Bring a gun to a knife fight? They will need a bazooka. Sorry if that sounds violent. But, as one sage person likes to say, we are in a fight for the nation’s soul. And sometimes you don’t get to choose the weapons or levels of intensity.

Ginsburg was an uplifting force in the ongoing American experiment. She was a feminist pioneer. She was an inspiring champion of equality, fairness, and perseverance. She wrote eloquent opinions that advanced and expanded progressive values and that made the United States a more perfect union. She penned blistering dissents that kept alive those values, even when they experienced setbacks. Her memory deserves more than passionate remembrances and praiseful eulogies. It warrants a fight. And perhaps a fight like one never seen before. One that will be damn notorious.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/ruth-bader-ginsburg-death-democrats-whats-next-mcconnell-trump/

[polss]

Political Swizzlestick: The ethical problem the Bloomberg candidacy presents for Dems.

I wanted to blow off the prospect of Micheal Bloomberg being the democratic nominee when he announced his candidacy. “Feh!” I arrogantly scoffed, “You think America’s going to rush to vote for another New Yorker?! Ha!  Typical New York Media overrating their local candidate’s chances.  You still have to connect with the rust belt voter.”

But time has smacked sense into me.

Bloomberg was at 19% nationally with Dems, sight unseen.

Nobody outside of New York knew a damn thing about him, but 19% of America had seen enough commercials to say, “That guy I’ve never seen before....he’s my guy!”

That is crazy.

But that’s kind of where we are in America.  Do the majority of Trump Supporters know all of the things he has done?  Can they tell you his position on any number of issues?  No... But they know he drives Democrats crazy. The moderate segment of their support had been somewhat underwhelmed by the Obama-Biden management of the economy, so if it drives Dems crazy, he must be taking the country in the right direction that businesses want to go...right?

“He’s a businessman and the unemployment rate is at record lows.”  is what they’d say if pressed. We have always measured the health of the economy by the unemployment rate so we have to do so now.

They are just as ignorant to the vast majority of their guy’s views as we are of our candidates.

In a world where no one cares about details, why couldn’t Bloomberg win?

If the race is two shady New York businessmen against each other and one is worth maybe a billion by now and the other is worth $64 Billion, is Donald trump going to be able to lord his economic knowledge over Bloomberg?  No. Bloomberg will treat him like a peon.  If Bloomberg says, “You aren’t a businessman, you are a con man. I am surprised you haven’t throttled the economy yet.  Step aside an let someone who actually understands how to succeed in business run this country.” it resonates with moderates everywhere.

You could legitimately see Trump supporters jump ship.  Every trump fan I know likes Bloomberg and thinks “that’s the guy the Dems should run.”  He fits their idea of what they want as a president.  Is it difficult to see 1-4% of them jumping ship to escape the Trump sideshow? Not at all.

Donald  trump lost more money than any other American over a 20 year period.  Bloomberg is without a doubt a successful businessman.  Donald Trump looks very much like a failure in business compared to him over a 3 month or so lead up to the election.

I am late to the game. A lot of people on the Democratic side have pointed at this very thing and proclaimed Bloomberg the Dems best hope.  I am inclined to agree now after looking at the financial picture and how easily voters can be swayed by a simple advertising campaign.

Bloomberg takes away all of trump’s best arguments. Business expertise?  Not even close.

Trump uses his lack of morality to dig at the political correctness that Dems foolishly cling too.  There is every reason to believe that Bloomberg is so rich that morality largely no longer applies to him.  Any mistake or lack in judgement can be erased with a check.  Donald Trump is not going to be able to use his lack of morality as a weapon against Bloomberg. And frankly since Dems would have voted for this guy, that is a tacit acknowledgement that morality doesn’t matter to the Dems either.

Want to smear Bloomberg with an ad campaign?  Bloomberg can run 10 commercials with Trump’s voice talking about grabbing women by the pussy and showing all the women who tried to sue Trump in the 2016 election for every one trump can run.  Literally every 15 minutes you could hear Donald trump talking on TV about grabbing women by the pussy. You think that wouldn’t have a cumulative effect?

Really all you have to do is move 1-2% from the trump column to the anti-trump column in say 6 states and that is the election.

“But the Bernie Bros will revolt!”  What if Bloomberg make Bernie VP?  Does Bloomberg care who is his VP? At all? Bernie is an old warhorse who has been selling his rhetoric to no one in particular for 40+ years. You think he would turn down being a heartbeat from the presidency?  Bloomberg is an old dude too. If Bernie has a legitimate seat with power like the VP job, you won’t lose any Bernie fans.  They have seen Bernie get screwed out entirely by the DNC.  This would be an acceptable loss for them.  “We may have lost the battle, but we won the war”.

Bernie Bros aren’t running against Trump....not yet anyway.... they are running against the DNC.

Bloomberg is worth $64 Billion.  He spent $200 Million LAST MONTH. That is 1/320th of his wealth. That spending is almost double what Bernie (the Democratic front runner) has had in his entire account this election.

Let’s say you were fairly well to do and between 40 and 80.  How much of your money would you be willing to spend to cross “get elected president” off your bucket list? How much would you spend if you were in your late 70′s?   30% of your wealth? 40% of your wealth? More?

If Bloomberg spent 30% of his wealth that would be $19.2 Billion dollars.

Hillary spent $585 Million in 2016. Donald Trump spent $350M and has roughly $240 Million donated so far for 2020.

Let’s say Trump end up with $600M.  Bloomberg would in his $19.2 Billion have 32 times the amount of money.

So lets say Donald Trump runs a TV ad of Bloomberg not wanting to release former employees from non-disclosure agreements. Bloomberg could run 32 TV ads with the clip of Donald trump weirdly fondling his daughter as she sits on his lap and Trump talking about how if he wasn’t her dad he’d be all over that.

Think we couldn’t get there?

Don’t count on it.

If you watched the last debate you saw the democrat’s Donald Trump on stage.  A win at all cost guy.

Now I have long bemoaned that the democratic party is run by a lot of folks who proudly display their participation ribbons.

The GOP tells the Dems, “You can’t do that!  It is a betrayal of our country!” then the next time there is a GOP president he does exactly that and the Dems say, “Gorsh, you got us again, lol!”

It drives me nuts and is even worse by the fact that the GOP has a guy in Trump who could give a shit about any of the social norms and is playing a win at all costs game, damn the constitution!

But do we truly want to run a “win at all cost” guy? Are we willing to turn a blind eye to the obvious disdain Bloomberg has for the common man’s opinion to get trump out?

Are Dems and left leaning voters willing to embrace a guy who doesn’t even want to say how many non-disclosure agreements he has had to payoff to buy ex-employee’s silence?  And let me assure you, if they were all off color jokes as he claimed, Bloomberg would have just released them all and taken the momentary polling hit. You could argue that a business has non-disclosure agreements to protect business information but Bloomberg himself admitted his non-disclosure agreements were to protect his bad behavior. 

For him to insist no one would be released suggests there is what would be a career ending story for someone whose budget for this election wasn’t potentially larger than the combined budgets of the last 30 presidential elections.

This guy is so out of touch he doesn’t even understand what people want him to apologize for about his policy of targeting the African American community in New York City for shake downs of their kids.

If you watched the debate you saw a guy who was not all that dissimilar to trump who wants to be president. That is clearly goal 1. I think there is a lot of evidence that unlike trump, Bloomberg isn’t running to profit off the presidency and legitimately wants to do right by America. I think he legitimately does want to put an end to all of the Trump nonsense, but he still seems like a guy we would deem morally unfit in any election prior to the slimeball derby of 2016.

I am not advocate for purity tests, but this isn’t a purity test.  If we were looking for angels we wouldn’t have let him in the door.  Frankly we wouldn't have let any of these people in. Which is why I'm glad that we don't have purity tests. 

My question is are we truly at a point where we can accept running a lesser demon against another lesser demon just because we think he would likely be favored to win and willing to do whatever it took to win?

Are we willing to elect a guy who we really have no idea what he is going to do in office just to get rid of Trump?  He could easily be just as disdainful of the constitution.....We don’t know and the early returns are we don’t care.

Are we willing to turn a total blind eye and be just as hypocritical as the Republican voters we have vilified for the last 3 years?

Are we willing to potentially forever destroy any argument by either side that ethics matter in a president? Are we willing to say that no American voters at all care about fair play and moral behavior?

Or are we willing to stand on principles and risk defeat with a more morally acceptable candidate like Bernie, Tom, Elizabeth, or Joe who might be at best 50/50 propositions against Trump?

I'll make it personal.  Am I willing to betray all the women out there who have ever been shit on by, feilded unwelcome propositions from , or been ridiculed by their bosses at work for better odds that we'll get Trump out of office?  I am half Jamaican.  Am I willing to betray solidarity with the greater african American community which finds this man unacceptable, for better odds?

Am I willing to sell my soul for 4 years for better odds?  Am I willing to look in the mirror and loathe the face looking back for 4 years just for better odds?

Melania says "Be Better". I want to be but after 3 years of this shit, the apple that snake is holding looks so...so... good.

I don’t have the answer.  All I’ve got are the questions.

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Trade

“U.S. agricultural exports to China plummeted more than 50% last year to $9.1 billion as tariffs raised the cost of American soybeans, pork and other farm products. The exports dropped another 20% in the first six months of this year. The pain is rippling through agricultural supply chains. One forecast says tariffs could cost the sector as many as 71,000 jobs over the next two years” [Wall Street Journal]. (Apparently, China’s swine fever epidemic has not cut demand for soy.)

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of August 5: Biden fluctuates to 32.3% (32.2), Sanders continues climb to 16.7% (16.5%), Warren flat at 14.0% (14.0%), Buttigieg flat at 5.5% (5.5%), Harris down at 10.2% (10.3%), Beto separating himself from the bottom feeders, interestingly. Others Brownian motion. So, I think we can conclude that Sanders won both debates.

* * *

2020

Sanders (D)(1): Sanders calls his shot not only the effect of trade deals on workers, but on the two-party system. In 2000. The whole video is worth a listen, since the Tweet doesn’t quote all of it.

In the year 2000, Congress voted to grant China upgraded trade status, helping it become world's most powerful dictatorship.

Bernie Sanders voted against. He stood next to Pelosi at Dem presser and blasted Bill Clinton. "Let me tell you where he got his money," Sanders intoned. pic.twitter.com/JzBZ3UiXka

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) August 7, 2019

No wonder they hate him….

* * *

“Few candidates have loyal small-dollar donor bases” [WaPo]. • Few, but not none:

Turns out small donor money isn’t all that fungible.

“Shadow of Dark Money Grows as 2020 Groups Shun Donor Disclosure” [Bloomberg]. “Democratic and Republican groups raising tens of millions of dollars for the 2020 elections increasingly are keeping their funding sources secret, a trend that watchdog groups warn allows high-dollar donors to gain influence with candidates without risking exposure. Priorities USA, which collected almost $200 million to help Hillary Clinton in 2016, says it wants to spend that much or more to help the next Democratic nominee defeat President Donald Trump. This time, however, Priorities is being funded mostly by undisclosed donations.” • What could go wrong?

“Are the Democrats divided? No — they’re poised to win big if they don’t screw it up” [Bill Curry, Salon]. “Everyone wants to see Warren and Sanders face off against Biden because the real dividing line is between the middle class and the donor class. Warren and Sanders never attack Obama, Biden or each other and they won’t do it in September. What they will do is compare their ideas and campaigns to his. The facts will be fierce, but the delivery will be civil. It’ll be Biden’s toughest test. Progressives want to take a new path, but I’ve yet to meet a “Never Bidener.” The stakes are too high. To defeat Trump, Democrats need to answer his racism with a message of both racial justice and social conciliation, and answer his corruption with a message of economic justice and political reform. So long as their candidates don’t make a fetish of their small differences, they’ll get there.” • White House counsellor to Clinton. Not seeing a whole lot about “economic justice and political reform” from establishment Democrats. Of course, if they hadn’t spent three years yammering about Russia, they might have had time to come up with something.

El Paso and Dayton Shootings

“Dayton shooter may be antifa’s first mass killer” [NY Post]. • I dunno. It’s the shooters pr0n rock band that gets me. I see the El Paso shooter, who — assuming the provenance proves out — wrote a manifesto as being ideologically serious in a way that the Dayton shooter, who was just a mess by all accounts, was not. (We should also think back to the Orlando shootings, where literally everything about the initial stories was wrong). And speaking of pr0n–

“Photos from Dayton and El Paso illustrate the grim routine of mass shootings” [WaPo]. • If I see one more photo of beautiful young people holding candles… Honestly, it’s like some weird kind of pr0n. I don’t equate viewing digital images of people mourning as actually mourning.

Where “we” are:

Panic in Times Square After Motorcycle Is Mistaken for Gunshots https://t.co/F5qsndMPfD

— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) August 7, 2019

Somehow, I can’t help thinking that a panicked populace is not conducive to sound democratic decision-making…

“What Experts Know About People Who Commit Mass Shootings” [New York Times]. “Can one mass shooting inspire another? Yes… Are video games to blame for mass shootings? The results of studies attempting to clarify the relationship between violent video games and aggression have been mixed, with experts deeply divided on the findings. How strong is the link between mental illness and mass shootings? Tenuous, at best. Would drugging or confining people showing “red flags” prevent massacres? No one knows for certain.” • This is pretty thin stuff.

2018 Post Mortem

No:

.@ChelseaClinton and I are thrilled to announce "The Book of Gutsy Women," out October 1st. It's a conversation about over 100 women who have inspired us—and narrowing it down was a process! https://t.co/DOhSrVq9SC pic.twitter.com/bOVES73FAQ

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 6, 2019

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Is ‘Bernie or Bust’ the Future of the Left?” [New York Times]. • Report on the DSA convention. I dunno, it seems to me that an organization dedicated to seizing the means of production shouldn’t be getting press this good. Perhaps it’s their stand on open borders.

“Twitter says it won’t verify new candidates until they win their primaries” [The Hill]. • Swell. More incumbent protection. That should certainly help Twitter with regulatory issues!

“Inslee Is Doing Very Well in the Power Primary” [Mike the Mad Biologist]. The conclusion: “Democrats in 2021 will need to make people’s lives better in meaningful ways. If not, we will have a repeat of 2010 in 2022, since next time we won’t get Trump, we’ll get someone smarter and more disciplined. As bad as Trump is, President Tom Cotton would be far worse.” • Yep. 2020 is their last shot. Biden/Harris all the way!

They call it historical materialism:

The political continuum hypothesis states that there exist historical precedents besides Nixon and Hitler. It is widely believed outside the United States, in countries Americans have never heard of

— Pinboard (@Pinboard) August 7, 2019

Stats Watch

JOLTS, June 2019 (yesterday): “Moderation in labor demand is this year’s theme of the JOLTS report” [Econoday]. “Quits, which are tracked by Federal Reserve officials for indications of worker mobility and related wage pressure, remain flat… This report hints at easing capacity pressure in the labor market and will likely be welcome by Fed officials who, with last month’s rate cut, are adding new stimulus to the economy.”

MBA Mortgage Applications, week of August 2, 2019: “A big drop in mortgage rates — the result of last week’s rate cut by the Federal Reserve — triggered a surge of refinancing applications” [Econoday].

Shipping: “Slots in heavy-duty truck production lines are opening up but few fleet operators are getting in line. Orders for Class 8 trucks fell last month to their lowest level since 2010” [Wall Street Journal]. “A factory backlog for Class 8 trucks that exceeded 300,000 orders late last year is down by more than a third, and research group FTR expects production to decline 22% next year. The good news for manufacturers is that cancellations have remained relatively light. That could change if weakness in the broader industrial sector gets worse and trucking companies decide to park their current fleet plans.”

The Bezzle: “A pioneer in the meal-kit market is losing its sizzle. Blue Apron Holdings Inc. narrowed its quarterly loss but is still losing customers… and a turnaround could involve a lot more logistics for a business already laden with complicated fulfillment” [Wall Street Journal]. “New Chief Executive Linda Kozlowski says Blue Apron’s plan to boost revenue and customer growth this year will include serving more households and offering greater menu choices, including flexibility to tailor the options…. Perhaps more challenging, analysts say the overall market is already saturated and likely smaller than companies had hoped.”

Tech: “Trump Wants to Make It Basically Impossible to Sue for Algorithmic Discrimination” [Vice]. “The new rule takes aim at a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, which decided that consumers could combat housing discriminatory business practices by making “disparate-impact claims” under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. In a disparate-impact claim, if you find out that a business practice had a disproportionate effect on certain groups of people, then you can hold that business liable—even if it was an unintended consequence….. HUD’s new rule would throw all that out the window by introducing huge loopholes to shield businesses from liability when their algorithms are accused of bias. As Reveal News reported, ‘A hypothetical bank that rejected every loan application filed by African Americans and approved every one filed by white people, for example, would need to prove only that race or a proxy for it was not used directly in constructing its computer model.’ But there is substantial evidence to show that racial bias is fundamentally baked into the way that these algorithms and their data sets are constructed, even if they don’t specifically take race into account.” • Code is law…

Tech: “Amazon Is Coaching Cops on How to Obtain Surveillance Footage Without a Warrant” [Vice]. “When police partner with Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance camera company, they get access to the ‘Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal,’ an interactive map that allows officers to request footage directly from camera owners. Police don’t need a warrant to request this footage, but they do need permission from camera owners. Emails and documents obtained by Motherboard reveal that people aren’t always willing to provide police with their Ring camera footage. However, Ring works with law enforcement and gives them advice on how to persuade people to give them footage. Emails obtained from police department in Maywood, NJ—and emails from the police department of Bloomfield, NJ, which were also posted by Wired—show that Ring coaches police on how to obtain footage. The company provides cops with templates for requesting footage… Ring suggests cops post often on Neighbors, Ring’s free ‘neighborhood watch’ app, where Ring camera owners have the option of sharing their camera footage.” • It’s a little tough to rank Big. Tech companies for evil right now, but surely Amazon gets a boost for this.

Tech: “Jeff Bezos feels a tap on the shoulder. Ahem, Mr Amazon, care to explain how Capital One’s AWS S3 buckets got hacked?” [The Register]. “After last week’s revelations that a hacker stole the personal details of 106 million Capital One credit card applicants from its Amazon-hosted cloud storage, a US Senator has demanded Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explain what exactly what went wrong. The sensitive information was siphoned from Capital One’s Amazon Web Services S3 buckets by a former AWS engineer, who was arrested and charged at the end of July…. Wyden is particularly concerned that other companies that store their data in the AWS cloud may have been hit in the same way by the suspected Capital One thief, Seattle-based software engineer Paige Thompson. He cited reports that Ford, the University of Michigan, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and others may have suffered similar losses of information at the hands of Thompson, and that this may point to a systemic weakness in Amazon’s security.” • Uh oh. Keeping my data on my hard disk, thank you very much.

Tech: “FCC Plans to Redo Flawed Broadband Maps” [Inside Sources]. “Accurate broadband maps would help under [-served] areas get internet access, and they could also be used to hold telecom companies T-Mobile and Sprint accountable for their pledge to build out 5G to cover 85 percent of rural Americans in three years and 99 percent of all Americans in six years once they complete their merger. (The combined company will face financial penalties if they don’t meet these conditions.) According to the FCC’s Report and Order for the Digital Opportunity Data Collection, the FCC will require all internet service providers (ISPs) ‘to submit granular data maps of the areas where they have broadband-capable networks and make service available.’ Previously, ISPs submitted census block data, which means even if they only served one person within a census tract or county, they counted that entire tract or county has having internet access.” • Wow.

Tech: “More on Backdooring (or Not) WhatsApp” [Schneier on Security]. “Yesterday, I blogged about a Facebook plan to backdoor WhatsApp by adding client-side scanning and filtering. It seems that I was wrong, and there are no such plans.” • A retraction, which speaks well of Schneier.

Tech: “Hacked Equifax Customer Receives 10,000 Stolen Social Security Numbers As Share Of Class Action Settlement” [The Onion]. • News In Photos, so the headline is the joke.

Manufacturing: “Boeing Holds Workshops With China Carriers to Bring 737 Max Back” [Industry Week]. “Boeing invited pilots and engineers from China Southern Airlines Co. to a gathering in Guangzhou on Monday, according to an emailed statement from Boeing. More such workshops will be held with Air China Ltd., China Eastern Airlines Corp., Xiamen Airlines Co. and Hainan Airlines Holding Co. in their respective hubs this week. The gatherings are among the latest steps Boeing is taking to bring the plane back, though the exact timing remains unclear. Boeing is redesigning the plane’s flight-control system and is still aiming to present a final software package to regulators by September, though the timeline could slip, a person familiar with the plans has said. China Southern and Air China are among Chinese carriers seeking compensation from the U.S. manufacturer for order delays and losses caused by the grounding of the 737 Max in the wake of two deadly crashes.”

Transportation: “Self-Driving Trucks Are Ready to Do Business in Texas” [WIRED]. “The truck developers come for the weather: It can get chilly in Texas, but the state doesn’t get the months of snow, which can bedevil automated vehicle sensor technology.” • So, when the headline says “in Texas,” it really does mean “in Texas.”

Transportation: “How Much Traffic Do Uber and Lyft Cause?” [CityLab]. “Today the ride-hailing giants released a joint analysis showing that their vehicles are responsible for significant portions of [vehicle-miles traveled (VMT)] in six major urban centers… Now, the Fehr and Peers memo indicates that [transportation network companies (TNCs)] accounted for nearly twice the VMT in San Francisco than the SFCTA had estimated, said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft’s effects on public transit ridership. That means the services are likely delaying commuters more, too… On average, between the six cities, just 54 to 62 percent of the vehicle miles traveled by Lyfts and Ubers were with a rider in tow. A third of these miles involve drivers slogging around in between passengers (“deadheading,” in taxi-driver argot); 9 to 10 percent are drivers on their way to a pickup.”

Transportation: “Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second Crash” [IEEE Spectrum]. “For about a year, Swiss Post and Matternet have been collaborating on a drone delivery service in three different cities in Switzerland, with drones ferrying lab samples between hospitals far faster and more efficiently than is possible with conventional ground transportation. The service had made about 3,000 successful flights as of last January, but a January 25th crash into Lake Zurich put things on hold until April. A second crash in May caused Swiss Post to suspend the service indefinitely, and a recently released interim report published by the Swiss Safety Investigation Board provides some detail on what happened—and a reminder that for all the delivery drone hype, there are some basic problems that are still not totally solved.” • In this case, parachutes that deploy “if something goes wrong.” More: “We have no idea exactly how safe Amazon’s drones are, or Google’s drones are. Even Zipline, which has been flying drones dozens of times per day for years, is still working to make their drones safer. What we do know is that crashes can (and do) happen, and the Swiss Post incidents are further evidence that we’ll need a much better understanding of where all of the risk is if we want drones flying regularly over populated areas.”

Concentration: “Australia Strips Google/Facebook to Their Underwear” [Matt Stoller, Big]. “The [Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)]’s most important contribution to the debate is to say, unvarnished, that Google and Facebook have exceptional amounts of market power and the incentive to use it to manipulate and exploit publishers, businesses, and users. Over the past fifteen years, Google and Facebook have become, as Sims put it in his press conference, “essential gateways for consumers and businesses.” The consequences of this shift are the killing of the free press and the mass manipulation of users….” • Most NC readers already know that, but Stoller’s post is well worth a read for the wealth of detail and clarity of exposition.

Mr. Market: “Carry On Like Nothing Really Matters. Until It Does” [John Authers, Bloomberg]. “It’s no secret that yields on sovereign bonds around the world remain stunningly and historically low. And that, in turn, means a revival in the ‘carry trade.’… Carry trading is best known from its incarnation in the foreign-exchange market. It involves borrowing in a currency where interest rates are low and parking that money in a currency with higher rates, pocketing the difference, or ‘carry.’ Ideally, you get paid for doing nothing… In practice, any increase in volatility or perceived risk — which can be nicely proxied by the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX — spells doom for the carry trade.” • Uh oh.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 20 Extreme Fear (previous close: 27, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 48 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 7 at 12:19pm. • Restored at reader request. Note that the index is not always updated daily, sadly.

The Biosphere

“Who Will Save the Amazon (and How)?” [Foreign Policy]. “Aug. 5, 2025: In a televised address to the nation, U.S. President Gavin Newsom announced that he had given Brazil a one-week ultimatum to cease destructive deforestation activities in the Amazon rainforest. If Brazil did not comply, the president warned, he would order a naval blockade of Brazilian ports and airstrikes against critical Brazilian infrastructure. The president’s decision came in the aftermath of a new United Nations report cataloging the catastrophic global effects of continued rainforest destruction, which warned of a critical “tipping point” that, if reached, would trigger a rapid acceleration of global warming. Although China has stated that it would veto any U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Brazil, the president said that a large “coalition of concerned states” was prepared to support U.S. action. At the same time, Newsom said the United States and other countries were willing to negotiate a compensation package to mitigate the costs to Brazil for protecting the rainforest, but only if it first ceased its current efforts to accelerate development.” • Ulp.

“Humans versus Earth: the quest to define the Anthropocene” [Nature]. “Crawford Lake is one of ten sites around the globe that researchers are studying as potential markers for the start of the Anthropocene, an as-yet-unofficial designation that is being considered for inclusion in the geological time scale. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), a committee of 34 researchers formed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) in 2009, is leading the work, with the aim of crafting a proposal to formally recognize the Anthropocene. This new epoch would mark a clear departure from the Holocene, which started with the close of the last ice age. To define a new epoch, the researchers need to find a representative marker in the rock record that identifies the point at which human activity exploded to such a massive scale that it left an indelible signature on the globe. Given how much people have done to the planet, there are many potential markers. “Scientifically, in terms of evidence, we’re spoiled for choice, but we have to pin it down,” says Jan Zalasiewicz, a palaeobiologist at the University of Leicester, UK, and chair of the AWG…. In the end, it will be the rocks that have the final say.” • In more ways than one.

“A mission to Mars could cause learning impairment and anxiety, study says” [CNN]. “On a long-term spaceflight mission to Mars, astronauts will be continuously exposed to low-dose radiation in deep space. A new study found that this exposure can cause impairments in the brains of mice, resulting in learning and memory issues as well as anxiety… Based on their findings, the researchers believe that one out of five astronauts on a deep space mission would likely experienced anxiety. One in three would be more likely to deal with memory issues. And all of them may struggle when it comes to making decisions, which would be crucial on a mission to Mars where communications with the Earth are delayed by up to 20 minutes.” • Surely there is a science fiction story with this premise, though I can’t remember one. Certainly lots of potential for dark comedy…

“This tiny insect could be delivering toxic pesticides to honey bees and other beneficial bugs” [Science]. “According to a new study, neonicotinoids can kill beneficial insects such as honey bees, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps by contaminating honeydew, a sugar-rich liquid excreted by certain insects…. The study suggests honeydew could be another way beneficial insects are exposed to deadly insecticides. This can devastate more insects across the food web than nectar contaminated with insecticides could, the team says, because honeydew is more abundant, especially in agricultural fields… neonicotinoids still account for more than 20% of the world’s insecticide market.”

Our Famously Free Press

“The GateHouse takeover of Gannett has been finalized” [Poynter]. • Ugh. I expect the imminent gutting of USA Today, which has been a surprisingly good paper.

“How to do something about local news” [Substack]. • Basically a hymn of praise to substack by a founder, but it still sounds like an interesting, er, platform (akin to WordPress, not Facebook).

Games

“Investigative journalism startup uses mobile gaming to finance its future” [Journalism]. “In the game, the player uses tools and skills that McGregor and his editorial team need in their day-to-day investigations and reports. With image verification being an example of one of the most difficult challenges, the game will ask players to assess whether a viral image is accurate or not by using software to spot areas of the image that have been edited. ‘It’s the basics and 101 of journalism – teaching people to be sceptical and what tools to use to crack the conspiracy, like searching court records or sting operations on a more extreme level,’ he explained.” • It sounds like the stories and games are fictional. I don’t see why they couldn’t be real.

The Last of the Feral Hogs, I Swear

For our readers in the United Kingdom:

“30-50 of them, you say?” pic.twitter.com/M07mLraoSE

— Josephine Long come to my show please it’s urgent (@JosieLong) August 5, 2019

A kind soul summarizes:

in the final analysis, the great moral victory of feral hog twitter was that it was much more of a carnival atmosphere with people aiming to make each other laugh than a dunkfest on the feral hog guy

— elizabeth bruenig (@ebruenig) August 6, 2019

News of the Wired

Bake like an Egyptian. Wonderful thread:

Two weeks ago, with the help of Egyptologist @drserenalove and Microbiologist @rbowman1234, I went to Boston’s MFA and @Harvard‘s @peabodymuseum to attempt collecting 4,500 year old yeast from Ancient Egyptian pottery. Today, I baked with some of it… pic.twitter.com/143aKe6M3b

— Seamus Blackley (@SeamusBlackley) August 5, 2019

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (EM):

EM writes: “You have been saying you need plant photos. I was just in the garden weeding when I remembered to capture this and send it to you. The pink hydrangea on the left is my favorite this year but I am also partial to the coreopsis beneath it.” I like the path, which looks like it would be nice to walk on in bare feet.

Bonus (PS):

PS writes: “Does this fill the bill?” Re Silc sent in his mobile, and Mark52 sent in his steel silhouette, and now PS. I didn’t expect a response like this. Reader, how about you?

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser.Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated.

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/2019

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[searchingforsignal]

Goodwill Has Left Politics

Nary a day go by where I don’t see politics plastered across social media. Overwhelmingly, it is individuals advocating for very progressive causes with witty slogans and fancy graphics. You can find accounts on the right as well, but those are often ‘Think Tanks’ or political advocacy groups. Rarely are they people that you know (as is the case with my liberal friends). Both sides have the right to do that, but the unrelenting echo chamber this environment forms forces people deeper and deeper into tribalism, especially when the other side feels like it can’t respond. I wrote another post a while back advocating for choosing to love those who disagree with us and I won’t rehash those arguments here. This time I want to voice why those witty quotes are disingenuous at best and malicious at worst.

Because I’m going to bash on the liberal side a bunch let me just reiterate that there are people on the right who do the same thing and I’m not looking to give them a free pass. One of two semi-political arguments I’ve gotten into on social media was with a right-of-centre account who insisted that 9/11 must have been faked because you couldn’t see the airplane hitting the pentagon in footage (Spoiler alert: if you go frame by frame, you can for ~2 frames, which corresponds to what you would expect on a low frame rate camera). But for this post, I’m literally going to go through my social media accounts and just respond to the things I’m seeing.

1) You MUST vote for Biden in order to stop Trump (or voting for anybody but Biden is evil/treasonous/makes you a terrible person) and the ‘Stop Trump at all costs’ mentality in general

Two problems with this one. First, how condescending is it to assume that you can tell somebody how they must vote. If you want to lay out arguments why Biden is the best candidate, by all means, go ahead, but don’t tell somebody that they need to vote for Biden because he’s not Trump and the Democratic nominee. Second, this is a recipe for long-term electoral failure. Thinking like this may win 2020 because of how extremely flawed Trump is, but what happens when a mainstream Republican who is willing to play to the populists runs in 2024? This doesn’t encourage the Dems to correct the very serious structural problems that lost them the Rust Belt. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. And beating Trump won’t magically fix all the things you don’t like about his supporters, they will still be there, ~40% of the population, voting, protesting, advocating. If the goal is to bring them into the fold again, just beating Trump won’t achieve that, in fact it may just make it worse.

2) The reason why Trump is treated extraordinarily poorly is because Trump is extraordinary

This is laughable to anybody who has an accurate memory of 2012. Trump won the primary because the Republicans were tired of taking the high road and getting beat up for it. Mitt Romney was not treated kindly and respectfully in 2012. He was one of the nicest guys ever to run for President and he was smeared as a ruthless businessman who was grossly incompetent and had a foreign policy out of the Cold War (Hahahahah remember when Obama criticised Romney for calling Russia our number one geopolitical foe...). McCain was treated much the same way. He wasn’t a war hero, he was a loose cannon, liable to snap at any instant. Republicans nominated Trump because Trump was an asshole. He would roll around in the mud without any shame. Trump publicly treated the Democrats the same way that Democratic groups would treat Republican candidates. Did Trump take this to a new level? Yes. Is this how politics should work? No. But to pretend that both sides aren’t guilty is to live in an alternate timeline.

3) Anybody who doesn’t support Black Lives Matter but supports Blue Lives Matter has some issue with the word Black (with the implication that they’re racist).

Uhhh... This is just disingenuous. The reason most people who disagree with BLM disagree isn’t because they believe that Black lives don’t matter, but rather because they disagree with the people who run the BLM movement. I’m not an expert on this so I’m going to kind of punt on this a little, but BLM advocates for specific policies. Somebody who has an issue with those specific policies can disagree with the organisation without disagreeing that Black lives matter. (In short, we have the phrase Black Lives Matter and the organisation Black Lives Matter. It’s reasonable to assume that the people who use “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” are arguing against the latter rather than the former [or at least we should grant them that presumption of goodwill until they prove otherwise].)

4) CHOP/CHAZ/Portland/Insert City Here Has Entirely Peaceful Protests

Okay, this is tough, but the important thing here is that everybody can be wrong. The entire city may not be burning and 90%+ of the protests may be peaceful, but there were several shootings in CHAZ/CHOP and there was, at the very least, property destruction in Portland. This means that the protests aren’t entirely peaceful. Might there be other factors (instigation?) at play, sure. But we shouldn’t lie to advance our own position.

5) If you think wearing a face mask infringes on your rights you’re just an asshole

This is another situation where several things can be true at the same time. The part that people choose to overlook is that a government FORCING you to wear a face mask in public can be a violation of your rights. But, if you can wear a face mask and you don’t well... then you might be an ass... Just because you think you have the right not to do something doesn’t mean you should choose to exercise that right.

6)  Accusing Trump of some -ism or -phobia

You’re not winning anybody over with this... People either already agree with you or you’re pushing them away. If you have a real argument against a policy present that instead, you might actually change somebody’s mind this way

7) Being Apolitical on your social media means you support the status quo

No, I just know that social media is a shitty place to have these conversations, and I’m not looking for a pat on the back or to start a fight. Talk to me privately if you want a serious conversation.

8) Police chose to be police so we shouldn’t advocate for their safety

Bloody hell... This one is stupid. There were several innocent police officers who were killed execution style the last time there were mass protests against police brutality so I think at least a little concern is warranted. Also this in no way has to or should take away from a discussion of how to address police brutality. Once again, both things can true at the same time-- this doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.

9) Democrats have a police reform bill, but the senate won’t take it up

Yeah, this one is TECHNICALLY true, but everybody knew that the Democratic bill had too many poison pills for Republicans to swallow. However, Senate Republicans had a bill too (one that was more moderate, it was essentially everything from the Democratic bill that both sides could agree on), which Sen. Schumer and most of the Senate Democrats filibustered to keep it from coming up for debate and amendment... At the very least, both parties are equally to blame here, though had Schumer allowed the bill to go to floor debate and it passed, then they would have gone into conference and negotiated a compromise.

10) Selective Political Myopia

This really encompasses many of the things above. We all tend to get caught up in the moment and forget the emotional baggage that some things carry with them. We don’t want to hear why the other side might find one of our positions problematic. Most everybody, myself included, is guilty of this; it’s why confirmation bias is a thing. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” So let’s all agree to do our best to be a first-rate intelligence. To see both sides of an issue and continue to function and to truly try and understand why your political “opponents” feel the way they do.

In closing IDGAF what your politics are, just be nice, respect the people who disagree with you, and do your best to actually listen to the other side. If I put some effort in I’m totally certain I could replicate this post with Right-Wing slogans, but I think that would be too much Charlie Kirk for me to take.

To end on a more positive note, I do want to say that I am really heartened to see real positive change being made towards equality.

Okay, Rant without direction complete! If you’ve actually read this far, thank you. Be warned, I will not even look at the notes on this-- Too much anxiety. If you actually want to talk to me, shoot me a message and I’ll answer, well, the next time I open Tumblr (which could be several weeks)

[gibsongirlselections]

Making Democrats Own Their “Summer of Love”

Remember all those “peaceful protestors,” later amended to “mostly peaceful protestors”?  You probably recall, also, the Main Stream Media’s determined effort to portray the people in the streets protesting the death of George Floyd as nothing but well-meaning reformers—until pictures and video made the spin wear thin.

Indeed, now even Democratic politicians are conceding that this wasn’t the “summer of love.”

With costly reality staring him in the face, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, on July 2, sent a letter to President Trump, formally requesting $15.6 million in federal disaster assistance for the damage done to Minneapolis and St. Paul during the  protests/violence over the last two months.  As Walz put it, “Nearly 1,500 businesses were damaged by vandalism, fire, or looting.”  He added, “These corridors provide lifeline services like food, pharmaceuticals, health care, housing, and transportation to thousands of Minnesotans.”

In fact, Walz estimated that the total cost of the damage could be upwards of $500 million; he described the events in his state’s two largest cities as “the second most destructive incident of civil unrest in United States history after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.”  Walz further observed, “The social and economic impacts of this incident will be felt for years, if not decades.”

So who, exactly, did all this damage?  Here, Walz had to walk a fine line.  Good progressive that he is, he couldn’t afford to be too critical of the protestors—because he might need their votes in his next election bid.  Indeed, back in May, he tried to argue that most of the violence was committed by non-Minnesotans.

This dubious assertion was quickly knocked down, and yet in his letter to Trump, Walz offered a different slant on the same outsiders-did-it argument, writing, “Individuals bent on destruction infiltrated otherwise peaceful protests and began to incite violence and vandalism.”  We might pause to note that Walz seems to be de-emphasizing, here, a word that he mentioned only once in the letter: looting.  Why?  Perhaps because looting is so singularly unattractive (to most people) that it’s best minimized when looking for bailout.

Yet in fact, the looting was so brazen that even The Minneapolis Star Tribune felt obligated to detail it on July 10; as the newspaper put it, “Near Hennepin Avenue and W. Lake Street, nearly 40 businesses were broken into or heavily looted, including large retailers like H&M, Timberland, an Apple store, Kitchen Window and Urban Outfitters.”

The Star Tribune further added that Walz’s $500 million estimate might be on the low side: “The full extent of damage to Twin Cities buildings—including residences, churches, non-profits and minority-owned businesses—could take weeks or months to calculate.”

Indeed, sometimes the damage done to a city in the wake of a riot unfolds over decades.  For instance, Detroit has never recovered from the riot of 1967; the population of Motown fell from 1.67 million in 1960 to 713,000 in 2010.

In the meantime, on July 11, the Star Tribune reported that the Trump administration has turned down Walz’s aid request.  The report included a quote from Rep. Tom Emmer, a Republican representing exurban Minneapolis as well as rural areas; it seems that Emmer had written a letter of his own to Trump two days earlier, asking the administration to “undertake a thorough and concurrent review of my state’s response to the violence and provide recommendations so that every Governor, Mayor, and local official can learn from our experiences and ensure appropriate plans are in place to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”  In other words, Emmer was seeking, at minimum, to add strings to the aid.

As Emmer put it, the feds should analyze “the actions that were—or were not—taken by local and state officials to prevent one of the most destructive episodes of civil unrest in our nation’s history.”  And to drill the point even harder, he cited news media headlines supporting his supposition of state and local fecklessness: “‘They Have Lost Control’: Why Minneapolis Burned,” and “Gov. Tim Walz Laments ‘Abject Failure’ of Riot Response.”

Emmer, of course, is a conservative, not in tune with, for example, the Twin Cities’ most famous lawmaker, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has embraced “defunding the police.”  By contrast, on July 11, Emmer tweeted a poll showing that 81 percent of  residents in the small city of St. Cloud, in Emmer’s district, believe that the police there “have an excellent relationship with the community.”

We might also note that Emmer is more than just a Republican lawmaker representing a conservative district.  He is also the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of the House Republicans.  Not surprisingly, the NRCC Twitter feed regularly zings House Democrats, and it’s a safe bet that Emmer and his rapid responders are now poised to target those who might take a progressive position on the national response, including financial aid, to recently afflicted cities.  We can see the NRCC tweet now: “Rep. ___ supports bailout for mayors that looked the other way while their cities were vandalized and looted.”

In fact, between Trump’s opposition and Republicans on watch, it’s likely that the Democrats will say little about rebuilding vandalized and looted cities—at least until after the election.

However, if Joe Biden wins this November—and the polls show him nearly 10 points ahead, which suggests Democrats everywhere will do well—then it’s likely that a Biden administration will look more kindly on Walz’s request.

Indeed, we could expect that the whole federal government, starting with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will seek to spend freely.  After all, Biden tweeted, just on July 5, “We won’t just rebuild this nation—we’ll transform it.”  And Sen. Bernie Sanders, fresh from his policy mind-meld with the Biden campaign, declares that Biden is shaping up to be the most progressive president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

So one wonders: In such a heady ideological moment, how far could the Democrats go?  Perhaps another “Great Society”?  Or maybe a “Marshall Plan” for the Other America?   And can the Green New Deal be focused on blue dot cities?

Yet even if Republicans are out of power next year, they won’t be without a voice.  For his part, Emmer raises pointed questions about urban aid, and so some Democrats—especially those many now representing suburbs—will have to think twice about voting for blank checks to mayors and their lefty constituents.  That is, if the city council in Minneapolis votes, as it did, unanimously, to defund the police, well, maybe most Americans will think that woke urbanites ought to be left to stew in their own crime juice.

Other Republicans, too, seem ready to pounce.  On the floor of the Senate on July 2, Mike Lee of Utah blasted “mob violence,” including “dimwitted, phony drama addicts.”  Lest he be misunderstood, Lee went on to rip “a privileged, self-absorbed crime syndicate with participation trophy graduate degrees, trying to find meaning in empty lives by destroying things that other Americans have spent honest, productive lives building.”

Then Lee got right down to the money issue: “The whole garbage fire that is the woke ideology depends on federal money. The mob that hates America on America’s dime.  It’s time to cut off their allowance!” So put Lee down as a loud “no” on any big bailout.

Then on July 12, Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted, “Minnesota Dems willfully allowed Minneapolis to burn & then blamed the police whom they demonized.  Now, they want the fed govt to pay the bill.  I’m introducing legislation to make local govt liable to private property owners if officials deliberately withhold police protection.”

Cruz’s bill won’t pass this year, nor the next, and yet a line has been drawn.  If Cruz and Republicans can figure out how to hold a vote on that liability legislation—or on other bills of a similar nature—they will be putting Democrats in a tough spot.

Of course, the typical legislative response to a “poison pill” bill is not to vote on it.  Indeed, both parties have grown skilled at the parliamentary art of obscuring unpopular items with “omnibuses” and “continuing resolutions”; that is, the money gets spent, but with no specific fingerprints on any particular line item.

Yet in the long run, the voters will figure out who voted to bail out looter-friendly cities—and who didn’t.

Still, in the shorter term, Emmer, Lee, Cruz, & Co. will be dismissed as mere gadflies, especially if the Democrats win big this year.  Indeed, Biden is ahead in Texas, and credible pundits even speculate that he could win the biggest victory for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1964.

And if Democrats were to win big this year, they’d be high in the water, indeed, in the 117th Congress convening next year.  Why they might even seek to emulate the 89th Congress, which convened in 1965, and which did, indeed, dream big.

If so, then Republicans will have to rely on smart Congressional critics such as Emmer, Lee, and Cruz.  One’s crystal ball for the future is, of course, cloudy, and  yet the record of the past is clear enough, and so we can recall that in the mid 60s, when ebullient Democrats over-promised and under-delivered—on everything from urban renewal to Vietnam pacification— Republicans were ready with their counterstroke.  And the voters were ready with their backlash.

Thus just two years after their 1964 triumph, Democrats were drubbed in the 1966 midterm elections; one of the GOP winners that year, we might recall, was that underrated actor-turned-underrated politician, Ronald Reagan.

Then in 1968, just four years after they had been crushed in the national election, Republicans won the the presidency.

Thus a half-century ago, Democratic hubris met Republican nemesis.  Today, that’s something for Democrats to ponder as many plan, once again, to transform the nation.

The post Making Democrats Own Their “Summer of Love” appeared first on The American Conservative.

[michaeljtraylor]

Advisers warn Trump about border closing

Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Money is published weekdays at 8 a.m. POLITICO Pro Financial Services subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 5:15 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.

Advisers warn Trump on the border — Donald Trump’s senior advisers, per our Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, are strongly warning the president about the potentially dire course of attempting to shut down the southern border

Story Continued Below

“Both the White House’s Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow have shared economic papers and data with Trump over the last 36 hours, illustrating the way economic growth could slow down even if the president shut down the border for just one day — not to mention the effect on the flow of goods, raw materials, and the U.S. supply chain.”

Inside the White House — Officials frantically spent the day Tuesday “searching for ways to limit the economic impact of shutting the border, according to two senior administration officials and one Republican close to the White House. One possibility involved closing the border to cars but allowing commercial trucks to continue to pass through. Officials stressed, however, that no final decisions had yet been made.”

Trump not swayed — Trump did not seem swayed by his advisers’ economic arguments: “Sure, it will have a negative effect on the economy,” Trump told reporters … “But to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important. I mean, we have to have security.”

Inside Biden-world — Per a source close to former vice president Joe Biden’s inner circle: “Joe told them yesterday to put out the word that it’s full steam ahead and yes, they expected this and expect more to come … They thought they were ready but know now that they were not. They are a bit overwhelmed but very clear headed and self aware.”

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: At the 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released their Financing Main Street report based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue to better understand how Main Street uses the financial system, and to measure the impact that financial regulation was having on the overall economy. Read the report here. **

GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING — Email me on bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver on aweaver@politico.com and follow her on @AubreeEweaver.

ADP jobs report at 8:15 a.m. expected to show a gain of 175K … ISM Non-manufacturing Survey at 10:00 a.m. expected to dip to 59.0 from 59.7 … CBA Live closes with remarks from FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams Consensus and Comptroller Joseph Otting at 9:15 a.m.

SHARES RISE ON ASIA HOPES — Reuters: “European shares rose for the fourth straight session on Wednesday, as investors took heart from further signs of recovery in China and progress toward a possible trade deal between Beijing and Washington. …

“Also helping sentiment was reports that British Prime Minister Theresa May might seek another Brexit delay to try to agree an EU divorce deal with the opposition Labour leader.” Read more.

CRUNCH TIME FOR CHINA TALKS — Via Bloomberg: “Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will resume negotiations with his U.S. counterparts in Washington on Wednesday as both governments push for an agreement to end their protracted trade dispute.

“The latest round of talks follow discussions last week in Beijing, where Liu met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Outstanding issues include protection for intellectual property and how to enforce any broader trade agreement

MORE ON THE BORDER IMPACT — Via our Rebecca Morin and Caitlin Oprysko:

“Trump …. acknowledged Tuesday that shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border could have a dire impact on the economy, but contended the move was about national security, and ‘that’s more important than trade.’ …

“Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have expressed concern over Trump’s proposal to close the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing such a move could have a disastrous impact on the economy. An estimated $502 billion in goods — about $1.4 billion a day — crossed the border through trucks and trains last year, according to the Commerce Department.” Read more.

DEMS LOOK TO JAM GOP ON THE BORDER — Via our Sarah Ferris and Laura Barrón-López: “House Democratic leaders are considering a vote to condemn … Trump’s calls to shut down the southern border, in a clear attempt to force Republicans into a difficult political spot …

“Top Democrats discussed the measure at a meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday evening. The measure — which would formally reject the White House’s repeated threat to halt all traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border — could come up for a vote as early as this week.” Read more.

STOCKS POST MIXED FINISH — AP’s Alex Veiga: “A day of listless trading on Wall Street ended with an uneven finish for stock indexes as the market lost some of its momentum after a three-day winning streak.

“After a brief early slide, U.S. stocks mostly wavered between small gains and losses through the rest of the day, as gains for some big technology companies were offset by losses in other sectors. … The S&P 500 ended essentially flat, having eked out a sliver of a gain, which was still good enough to extend the benchmark index’s winning streak into a fourth day.” Read more.

TRUMP BLASTS POWELL OVER ECONOMY — WSJ’s Nick Timiraos and Alex Leary: “Trump is blaming the Federal Reserve for holding back the economy and stock market despite the central bank’s recent decision to do two things he wanted—halt rate increases and stop shrinking its asset portfolio. …

“The president blasted the Fed and Chairman Jerome Powell at three meetings in the past week alone, telling Republican senators, supporters and staffers that if it wasn’t for the central bank’s past rate increases, economic output and stocks would be higher and the U.S. budget deficit would be rising less.” Read more.

And remember when stocks slid last month? — Bloomberg’s Craig Torres: “Powell received a call from … Trump on March 8 as concerns that day about the U.S. job market helped send stocks to their biggest weekly drop of the year. For months, Trump has been pointing the finger at Powell and the Fed’s interest-rate increases for restraining the economy and spooking the stock market.” Read more.

MOORE HAS NO PLANS TO STEP ASIDE — NYT’s Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley: “Stephen Moore … Trump’s presumptive nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, said on Tuesday that he had no plans to withdraw from contention for the job despite ethical and financial problems that have surfaced in recent days. ‘It’s full speed ahead,’ Mr. Moore said in a brief interview before an event he was attending at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.” Read more.

U.S. WON’T SEND SENIOR OFFICIALS TO SILK ROAD SUMMIT — Reuters’ David Brunnstrom: “The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

“China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as ‘prejudiced.’” Read more.

TRUMP ON THE BORDER – NYT’s Jim Tankersley and Ana Swanson: “Trump acknowledged … that closing the southern border with Mexico could damage the United States economy, but said protecting America’s security was more important than trade.

“In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump reiterated his threat to shut the border if Mexico, America’s third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States. But the president’s economic team, concerned about the damage from such a move, said it was looking for ways to limit the fallout if Mr. Trump does do so.” Read more.

IS THIS TIME DIFFERENT FOR THE YIELD CURVE? — Bloomberg’s Vivien Lou Chen: “‘This time is different.’ That famous line, which mutual-fund legend Sir John Templeton once called “among the four most costly words in the annals of investing,” is back in fashion these days when it comes to the Treasury yield curve.

“Skeptics from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Morgan Stanley Investment Management say the curve’s recessionary signals may be distorted now as a result of central-bank policy that’s kept interest rates exceptionally low since the financial crisis. Is it deja vu all over again?” Read more.

IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR SAYS ECONOMY IS AT ‘DELICATE MOMENT’ — AP’s Martin Crutsinger: “The head of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the global economy is at a ‘delicate moment’ with a hoped-for rebound in growth later this year being threatened by a variety of factors such as rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF does not forecast a recession in its updated economic outlook to be released next week, but she called the current situation ‘precarious’ and vulnerable to policy mistakes.” Read more.

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released a new report at their 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit. This report, “Financing Main Street: The State of Business Financing in America,” was based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue. It shows that in order to promote sustainable economic growth, our financial system must be as vibrant and diverse as the businesses it serves. And though more optimistic, 82% of companies reported taking some action as a result of changes to banking regulations, up from 61% in 2013 and 79% in 2016. Read the full report here. **

Source link

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8312273 https://hashtaghighways.com/2019/04/04/advisers-warn-trump-about-border-closing/ from Garko Media https://garkomedia1.tumblr.com/post/183934429259

[garkodigitalmedia]

Advisers warn Trump about border closing

Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Money is published weekdays at 8 a.m. POLITICO Pro Financial Services subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 5:15 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.

Advisers warn Trump on the border — Donald Trump’s senior advisers, per our Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, are strongly warning the president about the potentially dire course of attempting to shut down the southern border

Story Continued Below

“Both the White House’s Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow have shared economic papers and data with Trump over the last 36 hours, illustrating the way economic growth could slow down even if the president shut down the border for just one day — not to mention the effect on the flow of goods, raw materials, and the U.S. supply chain.”

Inside the White House — Officials frantically spent the day Tuesday “searching for ways to limit the economic impact of shutting the border, according to two senior administration officials and one Republican close to the White House. One possibility involved closing the border to cars but allowing commercial trucks to continue to pass through. Officials stressed, however, that no final decisions had yet been made.”

Trump not swayed — Trump did not seem swayed by his advisers’ economic arguments: “Sure, it will have a negative effect on the economy,” Trump told reporters … “But to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important. I mean, we have to have security.”

Inside Biden-world — Per a source close to former vice president Joe Biden’s inner circle: “Joe told them yesterday to put out the word that it’s full steam ahead and yes, they expected this and expect more to come … They thought they were ready but know now that they were not. They are a bit overwhelmed but very clear headed and self aware.”

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: At the 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released their Financing Main Street report based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue to better understand how Main Street uses the financial system, and to measure the impact that financial regulation was having on the overall economy. Read the report here. **

GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING — Email me on bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver on aweaver@politico.com and follow her on @AubreeEweaver.

ADP jobs report at 8:15 a.m. expected to show a gain of 175K … ISM Non-manufacturing Survey at 10:00 a.m. expected to dip to 59.0 from 59.7 … CBA Live closes with remarks from FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams Consensus and Comptroller Joseph Otting at 9:15 a.m.

SHARES RISE ON ASIA HOPES — Reuters: “European shares rose for the fourth straight session on Wednesday, as investors took heart from further signs of recovery in China and progress toward a possible trade deal between Beijing and Washington. …

“Also helping sentiment was reports that British Prime Minister Theresa May might seek another Brexit delay to try to agree an EU divorce deal with the opposition Labour leader.” Read more.

CRUNCH TIME FOR CHINA TALKS — Via Bloomberg: “Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will resume negotiations with his U.S. counterparts in Washington on Wednesday as both governments push for an agreement to end their protracted trade dispute.

“The latest round of talks follow discussions last week in Beijing, where Liu met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Outstanding issues include protection for intellectual property and how to enforce any broader trade agreement

MORE ON THE BORDER IMPACT — Via our Rebecca Morin and Caitlin Oprysko:

“Trump …. acknowledged Tuesday that shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border could have a dire impact on the economy, but contended the move was about national security, and ‘that’s more important than trade.’ …

“Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have expressed concern over Trump’s proposal to close the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing such a move could have a disastrous impact on the economy. An estimated $502 billion in goods — about $1.4 billion a day — crossed the border through trucks and trains last year, according to the Commerce Department.” Read more.

DEMS LOOK TO JAM GOP ON THE BORDER — Via our Sarah Ferris and Laura Barrón-López: “House Democratic leaders are considering a vote to condemn … Trump’s calls to shut down the southern border, in a clear attempt to force Republicans into a difficult political spot …

“Top Democrats discussed the measure at a meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday evening. The measure — which would formally reject the White House’s repeated threat to halt all traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border — could come up for a vote as early as this week.” Read more.

STOCKS POST MIXED FINISH — AP’s Alex Veiga: “A day of listless trading on Wall Street ended with an uneven finish for stock indexes as the market lost some of its momentum after a three-day winning streak.

“After a brief early slide, U.S. stocks mostly wavered between small gains and losses through the rest of the day, as gains for some big technology companies were offset by losses in other sectors. … The S&P 500 ended essentially flat, having eked out a sliver of a gain, which was still good enough to extend the benchmark index’s winning streak into a fourth day.” Read more.

TRUMP BLASTS POWELL OVER ECONOMY — WSJ’s Nick Timiraos and Alex Leary: “Trump is blaming the Federal Reserve for holding back the economy and stock market despite the central bank’s recent decision to do two things he wanted—halt rate increases and stop shrinking its asset portfolio. …

“The president blasted the Fed and Chairman Jerome Powell at three meetings in the past week alone, telling Republican senators, supporters and staffers that if it wasn’t for the central bank’s past rate increases, economic output and stocks would be higher and the U.S. budget deficit would be rising less.” Read more.

And remember when stocks slid last month? — Bloomberg’s Craig Torres: “Powell received a call from … Trump on March 8 as concerns that day about the U.S. job market helped send stocks to their biggest weekly drop of the year. For months, Trump has been pointing the finger at Powell and the Fed’s interest-rate increases for restraining the economy and spooking the stock market.” Read more.

MOORE HAS NO PLANS TO STEP ASIDE — NYT’s Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley: “Stephen Moore … Trump’s presumptive nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, said on Tuesday that he had no plans to withdraw from contention for the job despite ethical and financial problems that have surfaced in recent days. ‘It’s full speed ahead,’ Mr. Moore said in a brief interview before an event he was attending at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.” Read more.

U.S. WON’T SEND SENIOR OFFICIALS TO SILK ROAD SUMMIT — Reuters’ David Brunnstrom: “The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

“China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as ‘prejudiced.’” Read more.

TRUMP ON THE BORDER – NYT’s Jim Tankersley and Ana Swanson: “Trump acknowledged … that closing the southern border with Mexico could damage the United States economy, but said protecting America’s security was more important than trade.

“In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump reiterated his threat to shut the border if Mexico, America’s third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States. But the president’s economic team, concerned about the damage from such a move, said it was looking for ways to limit the fallout if Mr. Trump does do so.” Read more.

IS THIS TIME DIFFERENT FOR THE YIELD CURVE? — Bloomberg’s Vivien Lou Chen: “‘This time is different.’ That famous line, which mutual-fund legend Sir John Templeton once called “among the four most costly words in the annals of investing,” is back in fashion these days when it comes to the Treasury yield curve.

“Skeptics from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Morgan Stanley Investment Management say the curve’s recessionary signals may be distorted now as a result of central-bank policy that’s kept interest rates exceptionally low since the financial crisis. Is it deja vu all over again?” Read more.

IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR SAYS ECONOMY IS AT ‘DELICATE MOMENT’ — AP’s Martin Crutsinger: “The head of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the global economy is at a ‘delicate moment’ with a hoped-for rebound in growth later this year being threatened by a variety of factors such as rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF does not forecast a recession in its updated economic outlook to be released next week, but she called the current situation ‘precarious’ and vulnerable to policy mistakes.” Read more.

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released a new report at their 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit. This report, “Financing Main Street: The State of Business Financing in America,” was based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue. It shows that in order to promote sustainable economic growth, our financial system must be as vibrant and diverse as the businesses it serves. And though more optimistic, 82% of companies reported taking some action as a result of changes to banking regulations, up from 61% in 2013 and 79% in 2016. Read the full report here. **

Source link

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8312273 https://hashtaghighways.com/2019/04/04/advisers-warn-trump-about-border-closing/

[garkomedia1]

Advisers warn Trump about border closing

Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Money is published weekdays at 8 a.m. POLITICO Pro Financial Services subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 5:15 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.

Advisers warn Trump on the border — Donald Trump’s senior advisers, per our Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, are strongly warning the president about the potentially dire course of attempting to shut down the southern border

Story Continued Below

“Both the White House’s Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow have shared economic papers and data with Trump over the last 36 hours, illustrating the way economic growth could slow down even if the president shut down the border for just one day — not to mention the effect on the flow of goods, raw materials, and the U.S. supply chain.”

Inside the White House — Officials frantically spent the day Tuesday “searching for ways to limit the economic impact of shutting the border, according to two senior administration officials and one Republican close to the White House. One possibility involved closing the border to cars but allowing commercial trucks to continue to pass through. Officials stressed, however, that no final decisions had yet been made.”

Trump not swayed — Trump did not seem swayed by his advisers’ economic arguments: “Sure, it will have a negative effect on the economy,” Trump told reporters … “But to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important. I mean, we have to have security.”

Inside Biden-world — Per a source close to former vice president Joe Biden’s inner circle: “Joe told them yesterday to put out the word that it’s full steam ahead and yes, they expected this and expect more to come … They thought they were ready but know now that they were not. They are a bit overwhelmed but very clear headed and self aware.”

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: At the 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released their Financing Main Street report based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue to better understand how Main Street uses the financial system, and to measure the impact that financial regulation was having on the overall economy. Read the report here. **

GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING — Email me on bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver on aweaver@politico.com and follow her on @AubreeEweaver.

ADP jobs report at 8:15 a.m. expected to show a gain of 175K … ISM Non-manufacturing Survey at 10:00 a.m. expected to dip to 59.0 from 59.7 … CBA Live closes with remarks from FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams Consensus and Comptroller Joseph Otting at 9:15 a.m.

SHARES RISE ON ASIA HOPES — Reuters: “European shares rose for the fourth straight session on Wednesday, as investors took heart from further signs of recovery in China and progress toward a possible trade deal between Beijing and Washington. …

“Also helping sentiment was reports that British Prime Minister Theresa May might seek another Brexit delay to try to agree an EU divorce deal with the opposition Labour leader.” Read more.

CRUNCH TIME FOR CHINA TALKS — Via Bloomberg: “Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will resume negotiations with his U.S. counterparts in Washington on Wednesday as both governments push for an agreement to end their protracted trade dispute.

“The latest round of talks follow discussions last week in Beijing, where Liu met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Outstanding issues include protection for intellectual property and how to enforce any broader trade agreement

MORE ON THE BORDER IMPACT — Via our Rebecca Morin and Caitlin Oprysko:

“Trump …. acknowledged Tuesday that shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border could have a dire impact on the economy, but contended the move was about national security, and ‘that’s more important than trade.’ …

“Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have expressed concern over Trump’s proposal to close the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing such a move could have a disastrous impact on the economy. An estimated $502 billion in goods — about $1.4 billion a day — crossed the border through trucks and trains last year, according to the Commerce Department.” Read more.

DEMS LOOK TO JAM GOP ON THE BORDER — Via our Sarah Ferris and Laura Barrón-López: “House Democratic leaders are considering a vote to condemn … Trump’s calls to shut down the southern border, in a clear attempt to force Republicans into a difficult political spot …

“Top Democrats discussed the measure at a meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday evening. The measure — which would formally reject the White House’s repeated threat to halt all traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border — could come up for a vote as early as this week.” Read more.

STOCKS POST MIXED FINISH — AP’s Alex Veiga: “A day of listless trading on Wall Street ended with an uneven finish for stock indexes as the market lost some of its momentum after a three-day winning streak.

“After a brief early slide, U.S. stocks mostly wavered between small gains and losses through the rest of the day, as gains for some big technology companies were offset by losses in other sectors. … The S&P 500 ended essentially flat, having eked out a sliver of a gain, which was still good enough to extend the benchmark index’s winning streak into a fourth day.” Read more.

TRUMP BLASTS POWELL OVER ECONOMY — WSJ’s Nick Timiraos and Alex Leary: “Trump is blaming the Federal Reserve for holding back the economy and stock market despite the central bank’s recent decision to do two things he wanted—halt rate increases and stop shrinking its asset portfolio. …

“The president blasted the Fed and Chairman Jerome Powell at three meetings in the past week alone, telling Republican senators, supporters and staffers that if it wasn’t for the central bank’s past rate increases, economic output and stocks would be higher and the U.S. budget deficit would be rising less.” Read more.

And remember when stocks slid last month? — Bloomberg’s Craig Torres: “Powell received a call from … Trump on March 8 as concerns that day about the U.S. job market helped send stocks to their biggest weekly drop of the year. For months, Trump has been pointing the finger at Powell and the Fed’s interest-rate increases for restraining the economy and spooking the stock market.” Read more.

MOORE HAS NO PLANS TO STEP ASIDE — NYT’s Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley: “Stephen Moore … Trump’s presumptive nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, said on Tuesday that he had no plans to withdraw from contention for the job despite ethical and financial problems that have surfaced in recent days. ‘It’s full speed ahead,’ Mr. Moore said in a brief interview before an event he was attending at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.” Read more.

U.S. WON’T SEND SENIOR OFFICIALS TO SILK ROAD SUMMIT — Reuters’ David Brunnstrom: “The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

“China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as ‘prejudiced.’” Read more.

TRUMP ON THE BORDER – NYT’s Jim Tankersley and Ana Swanson: “Trump acknowledged … that closing the southern border with Mexico could damage the United States economy, but said protecting America’s security was more important than trade.

“In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump reiterated his threat to shut the border if Mexico, America’s third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States. But the president’s economic team, concerned about the damage from such a move, said it was looking for ways to limit the fallout if Mr. Trump does do so.” Read more.

IS THIS TIME DIFFERENT FOR THE YIELD CURVE? — Bloomberg’s Vivien Lou Chen: “‘This time is different.’ That famous line, which mutual-fund legend Sir John Templeton once called “among the four most costly words in the annals of investing,” is back in fashion these days when it comes to the Treasury yield curve.

“Skeptics from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Morgan Stanley Investment Management say the curve’s recessionary signals may be distorted now as a result of central-bank policy that’s kept interest rates exceptionally low since the financial crisis. Is it deja vu all over again?” Read more.

IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR SAYS ECONOMY IS AT ‘DELICATE MOMENT’ — AP’s Martin Crutsinger: “The head of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the global economy is at a ‘delicate moment’ with a hoped-for rebound in growth later this year being threatened by a variety of factors such as rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF does not forecast a recession in its updated economic outlook to be released next week, but she called the current situation ‘precarious’ and vulnerable to policy mistakes.” Read more.

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released a new report at their 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit. This report, “Financing Main Street: The State of Business Financing in America,” was based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue. It shows that in order to promote sustainable economic growth, our financial system must be as vibrant and diverse as the businesses it serves. And though more optimistic, 82% of companies reported taking some action as a result of changes to banking regulations, up from 61% in 2013 and 79% in 2016. Read the full report here. **

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Advisers warn Trump about border closing

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Advisers warn Trump on the border — Donald Trump’s senior advisers, per our Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, are strongly warning the president about the potentially dire course of attempting to shut down the southern border

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“Both the White House’s Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow have shared economic papers and data with Trump over the last 36 hours, illustrating the way economic growth could slow down even if the president shut down the border for just one day — not to mention the effect on the flow of goods, raw materials, and the U.S. supply chain.”

Inside the White House — Officials frantically spent the day Tuesday “searching for ways to limit the economic impact of shutting the border, according to two senior administration officials and one Republican close to the White House. One possibility involved closing the border to cars but allowing commercial trucks to continue to pass through. Officials stressed, however, that no final decisions had yet been made.”

Trump not swayed — Trump did not seem swayed by his advisers’ economic arguments: “Sure, it will have a negative effect on the economy,” Trump told reporters … “But to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important. I mean, we have to have security.”

Inside Biden-world — Per a source close to former vice president Joe Biden’s inner circle: “Joe told them yesterday to put out the word that it’s full steam ahead and yes, they expected this and expect more to come … They thought they were ready but know now that they were not. They are a bit overwhelmed but very clear headed and self aware.”

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: At the 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released their Financing Main Street report based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue to better understand how Main Street uses the financial system, and to measure the impact that financial regulation was having on the overall economy. Read the report here. **

GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING — Email me on bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver on aweaver@politico.com and follow her on @AubreeEweaver.

ADP jobs report at 8:15 a.m. expected to show a gain of 175K … ISM Non-manufacturing Survey at 10:00 a.m. expected to dip to 59.0 from 59.7 … CBA Live closes with remarks from FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams Consensus and Comptroller Joseph Otting at 9:15 a.m.

SHARES RISE ON ASIA HOPES — Reuters: “European shares rose for the fourth straight session on Wednesday, as investors took heart from further signs of recovery in China and progress toward a possible trade deal between Beijing and Washington. …

“Also helping sentiment was reports that British Prime Minister Theresa May might seek another Brexit delay to try to agree an EU divorce deal with the opposition Labour leader.” Read more.

CRUNCH TIME FOR CHINA TALKS — Via Bloomberg: “Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will resume negotiations with his U.S. counterparts in Washington on Wednesday as both governments push for an agreement to end their protracted trade dispute.

“The latest round of talks follow discussions last week in Beijing, where Liu met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Outstanding issues include protection for intellectual property and how to enforce any broader trade agreement

MORE ON THE BORDER IMPACT — Via our Rebecca Morin and Caitlin Oprysko:

“Trump …. acknowledged Tuesday that shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border could have a dire impact on the economy, but contended the move was about national security, and ‘that’s more important than trade.’ …

“Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have expressed concern over Trump’s proposal to close the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing such a move could have a disastrous impact on the economy. An estimated $502 billion in goods — about $1.4 billion a day — crossed the border through trucks and trains last year, according to the Commerce Department.” Read more.

DEMS LOOK TO JAM GOP ON THE BORDER — Via our Sarah Ferris and Laura Barrón-López: “House Democratic leaders are considering a vote to condemn … Trump’s calls to shut down the southern border, in a clear attempt to force Republicans into a difficult political spot …

“Top Democrats discussed the measure at a meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday evening. The measure — which would formally reject the White House’s repeated threat to halt all traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border — could come up for a vote as early as this week.” Read more.

STOCKS POST MIXED FINISH — AP’s Alex Veiga: “A day of listless trading on Wall Street ended with an uneven finish for stock indexes as the market lost some of its momentum after a three-day winning streak.

“After a brief early slide, U.S. stocks mostly wavered between small gains and losses through the rest of the day, as gains for some big technology companies were offset by losses in other sectors. … The S&P 500 ended essentially flat, having eked out a sliver of a gain, which was still good enough to extend the benchmark index’s winning streak into a fourth day.” Read more.

TRUMP BLASTS POWELL OVER ECONOMY — WSJ’s Nick Timiraos and Alex Leary: “Trump is blaming the Federal Reserve for holding back the economy and stock market despite the central bank’s recent decision to do two things he wanted—halt rate increases and stop shrinking its asset portfolio. …

“The president blasted the Fed and Chairman Jerome Powell at three meetings in the past week alone, telling Republican senators, supporters and staffers that if it wasn’t for the central bank’s past rate increases, economic output and stocks would be higher and the U.S. budget deficit would be rising less.” Read more.

And remember when stocks slid last month? — Bloomberg’s Craig Torres: “Powell received a call from … Trump on March 8 as concerns that day about the U.S. job market helped send stocks to their biggest weekly drop of the year. For months, Trump has been pointing the finger at Powell and the Fed’s interest-rate increases for restraining the economy and spooking the stock market.” Read more.

MOORE HAS NO PLANS TO STEP ASIDE — NYT’s Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley: “Stephen Moore … Trump’s presumptive nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, said on Tuesday that he had no plans to withdraw from contention for the job despite ethical and financial problems that have surfaced in recent days. ‘It’s full speed ahead,’ Mr. Moore said in a brief interview before an event he was attending at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.” Read more.

U.S. WON’T SEND SENIOR OFFICIALS TO SILK ROAD SUMMIT — Reuters’ David Brunnstrom: “The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

“China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as ‘prejudiced.’” Read more.

TRUMP ON THE BORDER – NYT’s Jim Tankersley and Ana Swanson: “Trump acknowledged … that closing the southern border with Mexico could damage the United States economy, but said protecting America’s security was more important than trade.

“In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump reiterated his threat to shut the border if Mexico, America’s third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States. But the president’s economic team, concerned about the damage from such a move, said it was looking for ways to limit the fallout if Mr. Trump does do so.” Read more.

IS THIS TIME DIFFERENT FOR THE YIELD CURVE? — Bloomberg’s Vivien Lou Chen: “‘This time is different.’ That famous line, which mutual-fund legend Sir John Templeton once called “among the four most costly words in the annals of investing,” is back in fashion these days when it comes to the Treasury yield curve.

“Skeptics from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Morgan Stanley Investment Management say the curve’s recessionary signals may be distorted now as a result of central-bank policy that’s kept interest rates exceptionally low since the financial crisis. Is it deja vu all over again?” Read more.

IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR SAYS ECONOMY IS AT ‘DELICATE MOMENT’ — AP’s Martin Crutsinger: “The head of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the global economy is at a ‘delicate moment’ with a hoped-for rebound in growth later this year being threatened by a variety of factors such as rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF does not forecast a recession in its updated economic outlook to be released next week, but she called the current situation ‘precarious’ and vulnerable to policy mistakes.” Read more.

** A message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets: This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released a new report at their 13th Annual Capital Markets Summit. This report, “Financing Main Street: The State of Business Financing in America,” was based on the responses of more than 300 businesses of various type, sizes, and revenue. It shows that in order to promote sustainable economic growth, our financial system must be as vibrant and diverse as the businesses it serves. And though more optimistic, 82% of companies reported taking some action as a result of changes to banking regulations, up from 61% in 2013 and 79% in 2016. Read the full report here. **

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