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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 10, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

A poll today by the Associated Press (AP) and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) shows that President Joe Biden’s administration is gaining positive traction. Sixty-three percent of Americans approve of how he is handling his job as president. Seventy-one percent approve of how he is handling the coronavirus pandemic; 62% percent approve of how he is handling health care. Fifty-seven percent approve of how he is handling the economy; 54% approve of how he is handling foreign affairs.

Fifty-four percent of Americans think the country is going in the right direction. This is the highest number since 2017, but it is split by party: 84% of Democrats like the country’s direction, while only 20% of Republicans do.

Biden’s weak spots are in immigration, where 43% approve and 54% disapprove, and gun policy, where 48% approve and 49% disapprove.

And yet, Biden’s people have been working to address the influx of migrant children; White House Secretary Jen Psaki noted last week that “At the end of March, there were more than 5,000 children in Customs and Border Protection Patrol stations. Today, that number is approximately 600…. The amount of time children spend in CBP facilities is down by 75 percent — from 131 hours at the end of March to under 30 hours now.”

The administration has backed that short-term work with a long-term initiative. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris met virtually with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leader of the left of center populist nationalist coalition party MORENA, to talk about finding ways to promote economic development to address the root causes prompting the flight of refugees from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and southern Mexico. They also talked about working together to protect human rights and dismantle the criminal networks that smuggle migrants. She will travel to Guatemala and Mexico in June, where she will meet with their leaders.

Disapproval of Biden’s gun policies might well reflect a desire for a stronger stance. In April, a Morning Consult/Politico poll showed that 64% of registered voters supported stricter gun control laws. We have had an average of ten mass shootings a week in 2021, 194 in all. (A mass shooting is one in which four people are killed or wounded.)

This week, Biden will be meeting with bipartisan groups of leaders, including Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), to begin to hammer out an infrastructure measure based on his American Jobs Plan. He will also meet with Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who have proposed their own $568 billion proposal without corporate tax hikes.

As the good news from the administration is starting to filter into the media, bad news from the Trump wing of the Republican Party is also starting to get traction. On Saturday, we learned that at retreats in March and April, staff for the National Republican Congressional Committee refused to tell lawmakers how badly Trump is polling in core battleground districts, where 54% see Biden favorably while only 41% still favor Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, and the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan are all more popular in those districts than the former president.

Indeed, it is more than a little odd that party leaders are bending over backward to tie their party to a former president who, after all, never broke 50% favorability ratings—the first time in polling history that had happened—and who lost both the White House and Congress.

Another set of data from Catalist, a voter database company in Washington, D.C., shows that the 2020 election was the most diverse ever, with Latino and Asian voters turning out in bigger numbers than ever before. Black voting increased substantially, while Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters had a decisive increase in turnout. The electorate was 72% white, down 2% from 2016 and 5% from 2008. Thirty-nine percent of Biden-Harris voters were people of color (61% were white); only 15% of Trump-Pence voters were POC (85% were white).

This demographic trend is behind the new voter suppression bills in Republican states. But the racial breakdown of the 2020 vote is not the only problem for the current Republican Party. The biggest turnout gains in 2020 were among young voters, 18 to 40 years old, who now make up 31% of voters, while those over 55 have dropped to only 44% of the electorate. Younger voters skew heavily toward the Democrats. Also notable was that women break heavily toward Democrats by a 10 point gap—79% of women of color support Democrats; 58% of white women voted for Biden-Harris—and women make up 54% of the electorate overall.

News out of the private “recount” in Arizona by Cyber Ninjas, a company without experience in election recounts and whose owner has already gone on record as believing that rigged voting machines in Arizona cost Trump victory, continues to be embarrassing as well. Although the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which has a Republican majority, said the count was fair and opposed a recount, sixteen Republicans in the state senate voted to give the ballots for Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, to the company for a private recount. The count has been plagued by conspiracy theories—one observer claimed they are examining the ballots for signs of bamboo in the paper to show that tens of thousands of ballots were flown in from Asia—and it turned out that one of the people recounting the ballots had been at the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Now the “recount” is running so far behind it appears it won’t be done until August, rather than May 14 as the company promised.

State senator Paul Boyer, who voted for the “audit,” told New York Times reporter Michael Wines: “It makes us look like idiots…. Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”

And then, this morning, the Washington Post dropped a long, investigative story by reporters Emma Brown, Aaron C. Davis, Jon Swaine, and Josh Dawsey revealing that the arguments former president Trump has grabbed to “prove” the election was stolen from him were part of a long conspiracy theory hatched in 2018 by Russell J. Ramsland, Jr., “a Republican businessman who has sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to a wellness technology that beams light into the human bloodstream.” The story follows how Ramsland’s theories, which were debunked as “bat-s**t insane” by White House lawyers, got pumped into the media by Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, among others, and how Trump came to embrace them.

While Republican leaders are still standing behind those theories, and the former president, opponents of the party’s direction are pushing back not just against Trump but also against those leaders supporting him. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tweeted this morning: “A few days before Jan 6, our GOP members had a conference call. I told Kevin [McCarthy] that his words and our party’s actions would lead to violence on January 6th. Kevin dismissively responded with ‘ok Adam, operator next question.’ And we got violence.”

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) has narrated a video distributed by the Republican Accountability Project recalling the violence of January 6, blaming Trump for spreading lies about the election, and reminding viewers that more than 60 lawsuits disproved his claims that the election was stolen. The video says “we are the party of Lincoln. We are not the party of QAnon” (showing an image of Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon Shaman,” who wore a horned headdress during the Capitol insurrection) “or white supremacy” (showing an image of Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson). “We cannot embrace insurrection” (showing a picture of Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene). “President Trump provoked an attack on the United States Capitol which resulted in five people dying. That is a person who does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.” The video features an image of McCarthy standing with Trump. Cheney made it clear she was not about to shut up.

This afternoon, McCarthy released a statement calling for Cheney’s ouster as conference chair, featuring the line: “[u]nlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate.” (References to George Orwell, who famously wrote about how fascists used language to rewrite history, were all over Twitter.) McCarthy and other Trump loyalists have suggested that Cheney needs to go because she keeps talking about the past, but Allan Smith of NBC News points out that Trump himself seems to be the one who cannot stop talking about the past.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #January 6 2021 #insurrection #Liz Cheney #Biden Administration #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American

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worldofwardcraft · 3 years ago

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The forgotten victims of GOP vote suppression.

June 24, 2021

The despicable voter suppression laws being passed by Republican state legislatures across the land are obviously aimed at disenfranchising people of color, college students and basically anybody suspected of voting Democratic. But there's yet another group negatively impacted by these noxious edicts — disabled voters, of which researchers at Rutgers University report there are more than 38 million.

A recent New York Times article quotes Susie Angel of Austin, TX, who's had cerebral palsy since childhood and is confined to a wheelchair: “They’re really making it so we don’t have a voice anymore. And without that, we can’t get the things that we need to survive.” The article also has this to say about Americans with physical disabilities.

Now, after an election in which mail-in voting helped them turn out in large numbers, the restrictive proposals are simultaneously threatening their rights and testing their nascent political influence.

Texas is already saddled with some of the worst voting laws in the nation, and a new bill includes (among other cruelties) a ban on drive-through voting, restricting access for the disabled even further. Interestingly, Governor Greg Abbott, who has announced his eagerness to sign it into law, is himself disabled.

Elsewhere, a bill in Wisconsin would limit who could return voters' ballots on their behalf, weakening voting opportunities for those identified as unable to vote in person due to age, illness or disability. Another Wisconsin bill calls for anyone under 65 applying for that status to provide a doctor's note.

In Florida, a new rule requires people to apply for absentee ballots every election cycle, burdening those whose disability makes it impossible to access the county website. And strict signature match regulations significantly encumber those who have trouble signing their names consistently due to visual impairment, brain injury or other disability.

Skipping over to Georgia, that state has replaced signature match with a requirement that absentee voters include the number from a state ID. Of course, many disabled Georgians don't have a driver's license and can't easily get to a state office to obtain that mandatory ID. Here's the Times again.

Removing options like absentee voting, drive-thru voting, or allowing voters additional help won't do much to reduce fraud but they will exclude those with a physical disability.

As part of its single-minded crusade to destroy our democracy and turn the US into a one-party state, the GOP is dead set on reducing the number of Americans who are able to vote. Unfortunately, this especially targets those of our fellow citizens who are physically disabled. Like we said, despicable.

#voter suppression #physically disabled #crueltyparty

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Down the stretch they come! No, it’s not the Kentucky Derby — today, Kentuckians will vote for governor in their party primaries. Incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin will likely win renomination in the Republican contest despite being incredibly unpopular. But Democrats have a competitive three-way race between state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins, state Attorney General Andy Beshear and former state auditor Adam Edelen. Beshear appears to be in the lead, but it’s unclear how big that lead really is and whether a Democrat can even still win a general election in a state that is now so deeply red.

Until Kentucky’s 2015 gubernatorial race, Democrats held most major statewide offices, and the GOP had won the governorship only once in the past 44 years. But Bevin won handily in 2015, and in 2016 Republicans captured the state house for the first time since the 1920s, giving them full control of state government.1 Thus, state politics now more closely align with Kentucky’s preferences in national races — the GOP presidential nominee has won Kentucky by at least 15 percentage points going back to 2000, and in 2016, President Trump won the state by 30 points.

All the same, Bevin (assuming he wins tonight) may still face a tough re-election fight next November. And that’s because he’s currently the most unpopular governor in the country, based on Morning Consult’s approval data for the first quarter of 2019.2 As you can see in the chart below, Bevin’s disapproval rating has been above 50 percent since the second quarter of 2018, which might have to do with his repeated run-ins with teachers, public sector unions and even his own party.

In April 2018, for example, Bevin vetoed legislation that raised taxes to expand public education spending only to have the Republican-controlled legislature override his veto while teachers rallied outside of the state capitol. He’s also made controversial comments, like when he said school closures allowing teachers to rally at the capitol may have caused children to be “sexually assaulted” or “physically harmed” because they couldn’t attend school.

Bevin’s approval numbers are even worse when you consider just how Republican-leaning Kentucky is. He had the worst approval rating of any governor relative to his state’s partisan lean,3 according to my colleague Nathaniel Rakich’s “Popularity Above Replacement Governor” rankings.

The latest ‘Popularity Above Replacement Governor’ scores

Governors’ net approval ratings for the first three months of 2019 relative to the partisan leans* of their states

Governor State Name Party Net Approval state Partisan Lean PARG KY Matt Bevin R -19 R+23 -42 RI Gina Raimondo D -11 D+26 -37 HI David Ige D +11 D+36 -25 WV Jim Justice R +14 R+30 -16 CT Ned Lamont D -4 D+11 -15 SD Kristi Noem R +18 R+31 -13 NY Andrew Cuomo D +9 D+22 -13 OR Kate Brown D -3 D+9 -12 CA Gavin Newsom D +12 D+24 -12 OK Kevin Stitt R +26 R+34 -8 UT Gary Herbert R +25 R+31 -6 NJ Phil Murphy D +8 D+13 -5 WY Mark Gordon R +43 R+47 -4 AK Mike Dunleavy R +12 R+15 -3 IL JB Pritzker D +11 D+13 -2 NE Pete Ricketts R +22 R+24 -2 IA Kim Reynolds R +6 R+6 0 ID Brad Little R +36 R+35 +1 NM Michelle Lujan Grisham D +8 D+7 +1 ND Doug Burgum R +34 R+33 +1 WA Jay Inslee D +15 D+12 +3 VA Ralph Northam D +5 EVEN +5 MO Mike Parson R +26 R+19 +7 IN Eric Holcomb R +27 R+18 +9 AR Asa Hutchinson R +34 R+24 +10 AZ Doug Ducey R +20 R+9 +11 OH Mike DeWine R +18 R+7 +11 DE John Carney D +26 D+14 +12 TN Bill Lee R +40 R+28 +12 MS Phil Bryant R +27 R+15 +12 GA Brian Kemp R +25 R+12 +13 ME Janet Mills D +20 D+5 +15 AL Kay Ivey R +44 R+27 +17 TX Greg Abbott R +34 R+17 +17 SC Henry McMaster R +34 R+17 +17 CO Jared Polis D +18 D+1 +17 MN Tim Walz D +21 D+2 +19 MI Gretchen Whitmer D +20 D+1 +19 NV Steve Sisolak D +19 R+1 +20 WI Tony Evers D +20 R+1 +21 PA Tom Wolf D +21 R+1 +22 NC Roy Cooper D +22 R+5 +27 FL Ron DeSantis R +34 R+5 +29 LA John Bel Edwards D +15 R+17 +32 NH Chris Sununu R +41 R+2 +39 MT Steve Bullock D +26 R+18 +44 KS Laura Kelly D +24 R+23 +47 VT Phil Scott R +32 D+24 +56 MD Larry Hogan R +57 D+23 +80 MA Charlie Baker R +59 D+29 +88

A Democratic governor with a net approval of +2 in an R+7 state has a PARG of +9 (2+7 = 9). If the same state had a Republican governor with the same approval rating, the PARG would be -5 (2-7= -5).

Shaded rows denote governors whose seats are up in 2019 or 2020, excluding those governors who are not seeking reelection.

* Partisan lean is the average difference between how a state votes and how the country votes overall, with 2016 presidential election results weighted at 50 percent, 2012 presidential election results weighted at 25 percent and results from elections for the state legislature weighted at 25 percent. The partisan leans here were calculated before the 2018 elections; we haven’t calculated FiveThirtyEight partisan leans that incorporate the midterm results yet.

Sources: Morning Consult, media reports

A big part of Bevin’s problem is that he’s struggling with his base. Morning Consult found in that poll that just 50 percent of Republicans approved of him while 37 percent disapproved. Compare that to the 86 percent of Kentucky Republicans who approved of Trump, and it’s understandable that Bevin is now trying to tie himself to the president, hoping to boost his numbers.

One bit of positive news for Bevin is that he avoided a high-profile primary challenge when U.S. Rep. James Comer — who Bevin beat by just 83 votes for the GOP nomination in 2015 — decided not to run. However, Bevin didn’t escape a primary challenger altogether. State Rep. Robert Goforth is running against him and even loaned his campaign $750,000 (as of early May, Bevin had raised a little over $1 million). But Goforth doesn’t seem to pose a serious risk to Bevin, at least not according to the scant polling we have: A survey from earlier in May from the GOP pollster Cygnal found Bevin leading Goforth 56 percent to 18 percent. Still, 32 percent of likely GOP primary voters said they had an unfavorable view of Bevin in that poll, so Goforth’s share of the primary vote on Tuesday could be an indicator of how strong or weak Bevin is among the Republican faithful.

But today’s main event is the Democratic race. The front-runner is Andy Beshear, the first-term attorney general and political scion whose father Steve preceded Bevin as governor. The younger Beshear squeaked out a narrow 0.2-point victory in 2015, with Bevin winning by 9 points at the top of the ballot. Since they took office, the two have been at loggerheads over many issues, including education, health care and pensions. These fights are one of Beshear’s main selling points in the Democratic primary, but Adam Edelen is running to Beshear’s left, hoping his support for abortion rights, decriminalizing marijuana and renewable energy will attract Democratic voters. And on Saturday, the state’s largest newspaper, the Courier-Journal, endorsed Edelen.

Edelen, the former state auditor, has also been on the offensive, attacking Beshear for his connection to a former aide who was convicted of bribery (however, there is no evidence Beshear knew about these activities). Edelen’s upstart campaign has also been aided by an influx of cash from his wealthy running mate, Gill Holland, and Better Future PAC, an outside group backing Edelen (primarily funded by Holland’s mother-in-law).

Meanwhile, state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins is running to the right of Beshear and Edelen on social issues, claiming that his anti-abortion views and support for coal are more likely to appeal to the rural parts of the state where Democrats have been decimated in recent years.

Beshear currently seems to be ahead, but the only data we have are competing internal polls. Additionally, the two most recent surveys are from mid-April, so it’s hard to know if things have changed substantially in the past month. For what it’s worth, Edelen’s campaign found Beshear in first with 43 percent of the vote, Edelen in second with 23 percent and Adkins in third with 22 percent. Meanwhile, Beshear’s internal poll put him at 44 percent compared to 17 percent for Adkins and 16 percent for Edelen. So Beshear appears to be the polling front-runner, but a win by Edelen or Adkins shouldn’t be ruled out; internal polls are notoriously unreliable, the polling we do have is old and three-way races can be incredibly fluid.

Looking ahead to the general election in November, election handicappers view Kentucky as a toss-up or leaning in the GOP’s direction. Still, it’s possible a Democrat could take back the governor’s mansion. It’s early, but the pollster Mason-Dixon found Beshear up 48 percent to 40 percent in a Bevin-Beshear matchup in December. So if Bevin remains as unpopular as he is now, there could be an opening. Then again, the Bluegrass State’s politics are pretty darn red.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Geoffrey Skelley

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melindarowens · 7 years ago

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Farenthold out – POLITICO

With Zach Montellaro and Kevin Robillard

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

Story Continued Below

SEXUAL HARASSMENT ON CAPITOL HILL — “Farenthold won’t seek reelection,” by Campaign Pro’s Elena Schneider: “Rep. Blake Farenthold said Thursday he will not seek reelection after facing mounting allegations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior from former staff members. In a video posted on his Facebook page, the Texas Republican acknowledged that his office ‘accommodated destructive gossip, offhand comments, off-color jokes and behavior, in general, that was less than professional.’ … His comments come after the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into the harassment allegations and as former staff members have begun speaking out about his conduct.” Full story.

AND IN THE STATES — “Woman says Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Murray sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager,” by the Casper Star-Tribune’s Arno Rosenfeld: “Tatiana Maxwell said she was working as an intern at a Cheyenne law firm in 1982 when a young lawyer at the firm, Ed Murray, wrestled her to the office floor and ejaculated on her stomach. Murray, now Wyoming’s secretary of state, denies the allegations. Murray is considering whether to run for governor and is widely viewed as one of the leading Republican candidates, should he decide to enter the race. Maxwell detailed the alleged assault in a social media post earlier this week and confirmed the events in a Thursday phone interview with the Star-Tribune.” Full story.

ICYMI — “Paul Ryan sees his wild Washington journey coming to an end,” by POLITICO Magazine’s Tim Alberta and Rachael Bade: “Tinkering with the social safety net is a bold undertaking, particularly in an election year. But Ryan has good reason for throwing caution to the wind: His time in Congress is running short. … In recent interviews with three dozen people who know the speaker — fellow lawmakers, congressional and administration aides, conservative intellectuals and Republican lobbyists — not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018.” Full story.

TAX REFORM AT HOME — FIRST IN SCORE — “House Majority PAC hits 5 GOP members on tax bill,” by Schneider: “House Majority PAC released a new round of digital ads on Friday, attacking Republican House members on the GOP tax bill as they head home for the holidays. The ads target five House Republican incumbents: Reps. Mike Coffman (CO-06), Peter Roskam (IL-06), Ryan Costello (PA-06), John Culberson (TX-07) and Will Hurd (TX-23).” Watch the ads here: CO-06; IL-06; PA-06; TX-07 and TX-23. Full story.

— Not One Penny hits Collins, Flake: Not One Penny, a coalition of Democratic groups fighting the GOP’s tax reform plan, is out with what it is calling a last-ditch ad buy aimed at persuading Republicans to vote against their tax bill. The ads, backed by a seven-figure buy, are targeted at Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, and Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Reps. Rod Blum of Iowa, Steve Knight of California, Bruce Poliquin of Maine and Peter Roskam of Illinois. The ad targeting Collins notes the bill would trigger cuts to Medicare and mostly benefit the wealthy. Watch the ad here. The ad targeting Flake emphasizes he could be the deciding vote on the legislation, which it says would cause tax hikes on nearly 1 million families in Arizona. Watch the ad here.

— AAN boosts tax bill in 1 million robocalls: American Action Network is launching 1 million robocalls to back the GOP tax bill in 29 Republican-controlled House seats. “The House and Senate just announced historic tax reform legislation that will provide tax relief for millions of Americans,” the recorded call says. “In fact, the average middle-class family will receive a $1,200 tax cut!” Check out the list of targeted seats here.

— DCCC pops polling memo on taxes: The DCCC released a polling memo that found voters trust Democrats to “do a better job on tax reform” than Republicans, 55 percent to 44 percent. Check out the polling memo here.

Days until the 2018 election: 326

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

POLLING DATA — NEW THIS MORNING — Data on South Carolina governor’s race: South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has a 48 percent favorability rating, while another 26 percent disapprove of McMaster’s job performance, according to a Mason-Dixon poll released today. In the GOP primary, McMaster leads with 51 percent, but Catherine Templeton “could be in the early stages of mounting a serious challenge” with 21 percent support, per the polling memo. Check out the polling memo here.

— FIRST IN SCORE — Blackburn campaign memo says they have the edge: Ward Baker, the strategist for Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s run for Senate, is out with a memo outlining his thoughts on two Tennessee polls released Thursday: “In the poll released by Vanderbilt, we have a name ID advantage of over 50 percent against Stephen Fincher. That incredible name recognition gap will cost Fincher millions and millions of dollars to bridge. Also, it is tough to 100 percent confirm this, but in their press release Vanderbilt notes that Fincher has ‘substantial name recognition in the western part of the state.’ Again, this confirms that Fincher has very little name ID in middle Tennessee, in other words, the Nashville media market, which is the largest media market in the state, and will by far be the most expensive media market in 2018. … Despite not having a full picture from these two surveys, they still prove things we already knew to be the case. Marsha is in an incredibly strong position with a real lead in the primary against Fincher. These surveys also show that Marsha is going to have a real race against [Phil] Bredesen.” Read the full memo here.

— “Iowans favor Democrats for Congress in 2018,” via The Des Moines Register: “Forty percent of Iowa Poll respondents say they would vote for a Democrat if congressional elections were held today, compared to 34 percent who say they would back a Republican. The finding is notable because Republicans hold three of Iowa’s four congressional seats, including two seen as among the most competitive in the country in 2018.” Full story.

AFTER ALABAMA — DSCC, DCCC release digital ads: Both the DSCC and DCCC are out with new digital ads attempting to capitalize on the results of Alabama’s Senate race. The DSCC ads, targeting GOP Senate candidates in Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Pennsylvania, attack them for “doing nothing” to oppose Moore’s candidacy. “Roy Moore doesn’t think women should run for office,” one sample ad said. “And Dean Heller said nothing.” The DCCC ads are targeting African-American women in 42 battleground House districts, encouraging voter registration.

DEPT. OF BIO VIDEOS — Jay Hulings releases family-orientated video in TX-23: Democrat Jay Hulings, who’s in a four-way primary to challenge GOP Rep. Will Hurd, released a biography video focused on his family’s story. Hulings and his mother talk about his grandfather, who “was buried in your Harvard T-shirt at his request. Didn’t want a suit, he was buried in your Harvard shirt,” Hulings’ mother said. Watch the video here.

— NH-01 candidate Eddie Edwards opens up in video: Republican Eddie Edwards “begins his new campaign web video by talking openly about witnessing as a child his mother being beaten by his father,” WMUR reported. “Those are the early memories that I have as a young person growing up,” Edwards says in the video. “Hearing my mother’s voice in pain, you never forget that. Having the police come to your home — those lights, those sirens — they meant a place of safety for me.” Check out the video here.

FACEBOOK FEED — “Federal regulators approve narrow Facebook ad disclosure,” reports USA Today: “Federal election regulators told a political group Thursday that its Facebook ads must include disclaimers showing who paid for them, wading into the debate on social-media advertising as the government grapples with revelations about Russian use of the platforms in last year’s election. But, on a 4-0 vote, the Federal Election Commission made it clear that its action applied narrowly, and it still planned to work on broader rules governing digital advertising next year.” Read Thursday’s advisory opinion here.

CASH HELP — “Jordan helps Zeldin fundraise after Ryan cancels help,” via POLITICO’s Rachael Bade: “Freedom Caucus leader Jim Jordan [was expected to] headline a fundraiser for Rep. Lee Zeldin in New York [on Thursday night] — a last-minute, line-up addition that comes after Speaker Paul Ryan backed out of an earlier Zeldin reelection event. Jordan told POLITICO that he was dining with Zeldin on Wednesday evening when his colleague asked for his help. Zeldin, an early Trump supporter, could face a tough reelection — though Cook Political Report currently rates his district as ‘likely Republican.’” Full story.

CAMPAIGN TECH CALL — Progressive tech incubator Higher Ground Labs opens its second round of applications for companies to get funding for new products. The applications will be open through Jan. 15. Eleven startups have already received $1.75M from the group.

STAFFING UP — NDRC adds staff ahead of midterms: “The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, announced its senior staff today. Hayley Dierker, who served as the chief of staff to the DCCC, will reprise the role at NDRC. Marina Jenkins, an attorney, will join as the litigation director. John Bisognano, a former Obama White House official, will serve as the director of campaigns and state outreach.” Full story.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’ve never seen a political landscape like this before.” — Texas Sen. John Cornyn on 2018, POLITICO reported.

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source https://capitalisthq.com/farenthold-out-politico/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/12/farenthold-out-politico.html

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everettwilkinson · 7 years ago

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Farenthold out – POLITICO

With Zach Montellaro and Kevin Robillard

Story Continued Below

Days until the 2018 election: 326

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’ve never seen a political landscape like this before.” — Texas Sen. John Cornyn on 2018, POLITICO reported.

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from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/farenthold-out-politico/

#TrumpNews #CapitalistHQ.com

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 3, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today’s news starts yesterday, when Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to demand he overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia and deliver the state to Trump. Raffensperger apparently recorded the call, keeping it handy in case Trump misrepresented it publicly. This morning, Trump did exactly that, tweeting: “I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia. He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!” Raffensperger retweeted the president’s accusation with the comment: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true. The truth will come out[.]”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Post both obtained a recording of the conversation and published news of the call this afternoon, revealing that Trump had asked Raffensperger to “find” the 11,800 votes Trump needed to win Georgia. In the hour-long call, the president rambled through the conspiracy theories about the election—all of which have been debunked—seeming to believe them. He insisted that there was simply no way he could have lost in Georgia, and cited the size of his rallies there as proof. Trump asked Raffensperger to adjust Georgia’s vote to give the election to Trump by a single vote, telling him that he could just say that he had recalculated.

Trump made vague threats against Raffensperger and the secretary of state’s general counsel Ryan Germany, suggesting that their unwillingness to find the ballots Trump insists are missing puts them at risk for criminal charges. He bullied them—talking over them and at one point telling Raffensperger “only a child” could believe the vote counting was fair-- and warned them that it would be their fault if the Republican candidates lost in the January 5 runoff election since “a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president…. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”

After running through all the conspiracy theories and suggesting that Raffensperger and Germany might face criminal charges, Trump said: “So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

Joining Trump on the call were White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent right-wing lawyer who had managed until now to keep her participation in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election quiet; and lawyer Kurt Hilbert. Meadows was more reasonable than Trump, but he, too, asked Raffensperger “to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that’s less litigious.” (Raffensperger replied: “[w]e don’t agree that you have won.”)

Mitchell and Hilbert backed Trump and Meadows in their repeated demand for information about voters, including their voter IDs and registrations. This is voter data to which, by law, they cannot have access. (When Germany answered that the state is prohibited from sharing that information, Trump retorted: “Well, you have to.”)

University of Georgia Law Professor Anthony Michael Kreis told Politico reporters Allie Bice, Kyle Cheney, Anita Kumar, and Zach Montellaro that it is against the law in Georgia for anyone to “solicit” or “request” election fraud. “There’s just no way that… he has not violated this law,” Kreis said. Michael R. Bromwich, former inspector general of the Department of Justice, tweeted that “unless there are portions of the tape that somehow negate criminal intent,” Trump’s “best defense would be insanity.”

David Shafer, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, tried to excuse this extraordinary conversation by tweeting that the phone call had been a “confidential settlement discussion” of two lawsuits Trump has filed against Raffensperger, and that the audio version the Washington Post published was “heavily edited and omits the stipulation that all discussions were for the purpose of settling litigation and confidential under federal and state law.”

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer leading the Biden team’s litigation efforts to counter Trump’s lawsuits over the election, knocked that explanation flat. “Trump and his allies have lost 60 post-election lawsuits, including several in GA,” he tweeted. “There are no cases that could have plausibly been the subject of settlement discussion. Oh, and I represent parties in all of those cases, so I would have had to be on the phone as well. I wasn't.”

President Richard M. Nixon resigned after his people orchestrated an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., before the 1972 election, and then covered up that burglary. What is on this recording makes the Watergate scandal look quaint. President Trump, his chief of staff, and two of his lawyers have been recorded pressuring state authorities to change vote counts so they can steal an American election. Especially considering that we know Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to help him win in 2020, we have to assume this is not the only call like this he has made in the last several weeks.

The only more thorough attack on our democracy would involve the military and, not coincidentally, tonight all ten living former defense secretaries, including two who served under Trump, signed a letter to the Washington Post reiterating that the military should not be involved in determining the outcome of an election. They warned that any efforts to involve the military in an election dispute “would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory,” and noted that any civilian or military official who either directs or carries out an order to get involved in an election “would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”

This bombshell recording changes political calculations across the board.

Republicans have been lining up either for or against the president, showing their loyalty by backing his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. More than 100 House members have said they would contest Congress’s January 6 counting of the electoral votes from states Trump continues, without evidence, to claim he won. On December 30, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) agreed to join them, at least for the state of Pennsylvania. Then, yesterday, twelve senators, led by Ted Cruz (R-TX) said they would reject the votes from all the contested states and demand an audit of the election results there. They don’t expect to change the election—the results are clear—but lawmakers backing Trump are hoping to court his voters for future elections as they try to step into the vacuum his removal from office will create.

It’s a cynical and dangerous position, and standing against them are lawmakers like Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), who note that the 2020 election was overwhelming and clean, and that Trump is attacking the very basis of democratic government as he tries to change the outcome of it. They are hoping to pull the Republican Party away from Trump and his followers.

The struggle between the two factions was out in the open by yesterday, and shortly before the news of the recording dropped, two Republican leaders sided against the lawmakers planning to contest the counting of the electoral votes. House of Representatives Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is responsible for electing the House Republican leadership and managing committee assignments and who is therefore very powerful, sent a 21-page memo to her colleagues warning that such a plan would set a dangerous precedent, enabling Congress, rather than the states, to choose the president. She concluded: [B]oth the clear text of the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act [of 1887] compel the same conclusion—there is no appropriate basis to object to the electors from any of the six states at issue.”

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) also issued a statement condemning the plan. "It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans," he wrote.

These two defections from the Trump camp were not, perhaps, surprises, but the news of this extraordinary recording now offers an opening for others to slide away from Trump. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who has been a staunch supporter of the president but who seems to be trying to position himself for a presidential run in 2024, tonight also rejected his colleagues’ plan to challenge the electoral count on Wednesday. His statement split the difference between the two Republican factions. He reiterated many of the Trump camp’s talking points but, like Cheney, objected to their plan to overturn the election in Congress on the grounds that the last thing conservatives, who object to the power of the federal government, should want is a stronger Congress. Cotton's defection is a sign that the recording is undermining Trump's position.

If there is one good thing for the president in all this, it is that this stunning news has taken the media focus off the coronavirus, at least for a few hours. More than 350,000 Americans have now died of Covid-19; more than 20 million Americans have been infected. “Cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing, deaths are increasing,” Dr. Henry Walke of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Tim Stelloh of NBC News. CDC Director Robert Redfield agreed, adding that the winter months “are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #political #politics 2020 #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #GOP Coup attempt

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 21, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On ABC’s This Week this morning, Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) refused to admit that Democrat Joe Biden had legitimately won the 2020 presidential election.

It’s hard to overestimate how dangerous this lie is. It convinces supporters of the former president that they are actually protecting American democracy when they fight to overturn it. Jessica Watkins is one of 9 members of the right-wing paramilitary group the Oath Keepers indicted for their actions on January 6. Yesterday, her lawyer told the court that Watkins behaved as she did because she believed that then-President Donald Trump would use the military to overturn what he falsely insisted was the rigged election.

“However misguided, her intentions were not in any way related to an intention to overthrow the government, but to support what she believed to be the lawful government. She took an oath to support the Constitution and had no intention of violating that oath…."

Watkins claims she was given a VIP pass to the pro-Trump rally, had met with Secret Service agents, and was charged with providing security for the leaders marching to the Capitol from Trump’s January 6, 2021, rally.

Supporters of the former president are portraying the deadly attack on the Capitol on January 6 as a legitimate expression of anger over an election in which states did not follow their own rules. This is a lie that the Trump wing hopes will resurrect their lost power. Politico’s Gabby Orr and Meridith McGraw report that Trump is planning to “exact vengeance” on the Republicans who have turned against him, running his own candidates in 2022 to undercut them. Earlier this week, he met with Scalise.

Trump’s big lie is deeply cynical, and yet it is falling on the ears of voters primed to believe it.

Republican Party leadership launched the idea that Democrats could not win an election legitimately all the way back in 1986. They began to examine the made-up issue of voter fraud to cut Democrats out of the electorate because they knew they could not win elections based on their increasingly unpopular policies.

In 1986, Republicans launched a “ballot integrity” initiative that they defended as a way to prevent voter fraud, but which an official privately noted “could keep the black vote down considerably.” In 1993, when Democrats expanded voter registration at certain state offices—the so-called Motor Voter Law-- they complained that the Democrats were simply trying to enroll illegitimate Democratic voters in welfare and unemployment offices.

In 1994, Republicans who lost elections charged that Democrats only won through

voter fraud, although then, as now, fraud was vanishingly rare. In 1996, House and Senate Republicans each launched year-long investigations into what they insisted were problematic elections, one in Louisiana and one in California. Keeping investigations of alleged voter fraud in front of the media for a year helped to convince Americans that voter fraud was a serious issue and that Democrats were winning elections thanks to illegal voters.

In 1998, the Florida legislature passed a voter ID law that led to a purge of voters from the system before the election of 2000, resulting in what the United States Commission on Civil Rights called “an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement,” particularly of Democratic African American voters.

After 2000, the idea that Democrats could win only by cheating became engrained in the Republican Party as their increasing rightward slide made increasing numbers of voters unhappy with their actual policies. Rather than moderating their stance, they suppressed the votes of their opponents. In 2016, Trump operative and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” Roger Stone launched a “Stop the Steal” website warning that “If this election is close, THEY WILL STEAL IT.” The slogan reappeared briefly in 2018, and in 2021, it sparked an attack on our government.

The idea that Democrats cannot legitimately win an election has been part of the Republican leadership’s playbook now for a generation, and it has worked: a recent survey showed that 65% of Republicans believe the 2020 election was plagued by widespread fraud, although election officials say the election was remarkably clean.

Republican lawmakers are going along with Trump’s big lie because it serves their interests: claiming fraud justifies laws to suppress Democratic votes. Alice O’Lenick, a Republican-appointed election official in Gwinnett County, Georgia, endorsed restrictive measures, saying, “they have got to change the major parts of [laws] so we at least have a shot at winning.”

But that is not the only story right now.

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin the nomination process for Biden’s prospective attorney general, Merrick Garland. While he was still Judiciary Committee chair, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) seemed curiously resistant to holding a hearing for Garland.

Now, Trump Republicans have made their demands clear in a letter to new Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-IL). It is signed by all but two of the Republicans on the committee, illustrating that the Republican contingent on the Senate Judiciary Committee is made up of Trump supporters. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) want Garland “to commit the Department of Justice” to investigating New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for his handling of the coronavirus in his state.

Garland, 68, is well-known as a moderate centrist, who made headlines when he oversaw the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers in 1995-1997. On Saturday, he released his opening statement to the committee.

He reaffirmed that the attorney general should be the lawyer for the people of the United States, not for any one individual. He noted that 2020 was the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Justice (DOJ), created during the Ulysses S. Grant administration to protect the rule of law in the southern states where, at the time, Ku Klux Klan members were murdering their Black neighbors to keep them from exercising their rights.

The rules developed in those years are the foundation for the rule of law, Garland wrote in apparent criticism of the previous president’s DOJ. We need the Justice Department to be independent from partisan influence, including that coming from the White House. We need it to provide clear guidelines for FBI intelligence operations. We need it to treat the press respectfully and to be as transparent as possible. We need it to respect the professionalism of the DOJ’s career employees, and to have clear guidelines for prosecutors.

Garland went on to outline what he sees as the crucial mission he would undertake as Attorney General: guaranteeing the equal justice to all Americans promised 150 years ago and still elusive. “Communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, education, employment, and the criminal justice system; and bear the brunt of the harm caused by pandemic, pollution, and climate change,” he wrote.

He pledged to protect Americans from abuse from those who control our markets, “from fraud and corruption, from violent crime and cybercrime, and from drug trafficking and child exploitation” while also being ever-mindful of terrorist attacks.

Then Garland took head-on the big lie: “150 years after the Department’s founding, battling extremist attacks on our democratic institutions remains central to its mission.”

“If confirmed,” he wrote, “I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6—a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government.”

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#quotes #political #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #election fraud #the big lie #corruption #January 6 2021 #Attorney General

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