“John Paul Stevens, a moderate midwestern Republican and former antitrust lawyer from Chicago who evolved into a savvy and sometimes passionate leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing and became the third-longest-serving justice on the high court before his retirement in 2010, died July 16 at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale,” the Washington Post reports.
He was 99.
A new Reuter/Ipsos poll finds President Trump’s net approval among Republicans rose by 5 percentage points to 72%, after his racist attack on four Democratic lawmakers.
Trump has lost support, however, with Democrats and independents.
Trump’s overall approval remained unchanged over the past week, 41% o 55%
“I know racism when I see it, I know racism when I feel it, and at the highest level of government, there’s no room for racism.”
— Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), quoted by the New York Times, condemning President Trump’s attacks on four Democratic congresswomen.
“The House voted on Tuesday to condemn as racist President Trump’s attacks against four congresswomen of color, but only after the debate over the president’s language devolved into a bitterly partisan brawl that showcased deep rifts over race, ethnicity and political ideology in the age of Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“The measure passed nearly along party lines, 240-187, following one of the most polarizing exchanges on the House floor in recent memory. Only four Republicans and the House’s lone independent, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, voted with all Democrats to condemn Mr. Trump.”
Washington Post: “The imagery of the 240-to-187 vote was stark: A diverse Democratic caucus cast the president’s words as an affront to millions of Americans and descendants of immigrants while Republican lawmakers — the vast majority of them white men — stood with Trump against a resolution that rejected his “racist comments that have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.'”
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested tonight that she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may be within striking distance of a two-year agreement to avoid billions in automatic spending cuts and a calamitous default on the nation’s debt,” Politico reports.
Said Pelosi: “We have a clear understanding of what we want to agree to and I think that’s progress.”
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a vocal supporter of President Trump, told Fox News that while most of the Democratic presidential field was “equally unimpressive,” he thought that Sen. Elizabeth Warren was “the dangerous one.”
Said Thiel: “I’m most scared by Elizabeth Warren. I think she’s the one who’s actually talking about the economy, which is the only thing — the thing that I think matters by far the most.”
Warren tweeted a succint response: “Good.”
Politico: “There’s also evidence that moments in Trump’s presidency when he’s been accused of making racist statements have done the most harm to his image.”
“When Trump claimed there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ after white supremacists clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, killing one woman and leaving others injured, his approval rating dipped to a low of 39 percent. And after word leaked out of the White House that Trump once referred to El Salvador, Haiti and African nations as ‘shithole’ countries, his rating fell to 36 percent.”
Jonathan Last: “The biggest of these missed opportunities was Paul Ryan’s decision not to mount a campaign against Trump following the Access Hollywood tape. Had Ryan actively turned on Trump and called on other Republicans to do the same, he would have broken the party. That’s a 100 percent certainty.”
“But Trump would not be president today. That’s also a 100 percent certainty.”
“Which means that all of the damage Trump has inflicted on the GOP since 2016 wouldn’t have happened. And without the power of the White House, his institutional hold on the party would have been broken. If the party was capable of healing itself—an open question—the healing process would already be underway.”
“Paul Ryan’s political career would have been over, too. But then, that was inevitable at the time anyway. Ryan just didn’t realize it.”
“The chairman of the Oregon Republican Party on Monday filed paperwork to launch a recall against Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, citing some of the laws Democrats passed in the 2019 legislative session,” the Oregonian reports.
“Organizers now have 90 days to gather 280,050 valid signatures from voters… That’s a high bar: it’s not unusual for campaigns to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars collecting signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot.”
“If recall supporters gather enough signatures, a special election could be scheduled sometime in November.”
“There are no more good TV shows on like ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘Bonanza,’ ‘The Virginian,’ ‘Andy Griffith,’ ‘I Love Lucy.’ We don’t have those shows anymore. We’re too interested in homosexual activities. We’re too interested in seeing how this family’s finding a way to mess on this family or to see how people are trying to date on TV, or having wife-swapping on TV. That’s what we watch. When we push back against that, and we quit allowing it to be in our homes – that’s how those changes have occurred because we’ve allowed them to slowly but surely come into our lives.”
— Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R), quoted by Yellowhammer News, on the need to change popular culture.
“Republican operative Jason Miller, the former communications chief for the Trump campaign and transition team, said he hired numerous prostitutes and visited ‘hand job’ massage parlors as recently as a few months ago in a new videotaped deposition,” Mediaite reports.
“The May deposition details Miller’s multiple extramarital affairs, including his sexual relationships with two subordinates during the 2016 presidential campaign… The affairs occurred while his wife, Kelly Miller, was pregnant and the two were not legally separated.”
“From the president, to the speaker to freshmen members of the House, all of us have a responsibility to elevate the public discourse. Our words do matter. We all know politics is a combat sport, but it’s about time we lowered the temperature all across the board.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by McClatchy.
David Remnick: “Republicans and Independents, evangelicals, and many others who might have voted for Trump in 2016 will eventually have to ask themselves whether it is possible to go on believing that he is a man of sufficient character to hold the Presidency. They will have to ask themselves what it means to overlook his racism and what this says about them. How can they believe it is possible to support a racist and escape that in themselves? Or will they pronounce themselves, as the Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, did, ‘not concerned’?”
“The present moment is never fixed, or not for long. History is in the hands of members of Congress who have the option to collude or impeach, go along or resist; it is in the hands of citizens who can vote or stay at home. In 1989, we lived the illusion of unstoppable democratic advance. Democratic values have since receded. In 2008, we enjoyed the illusion of racial progress. Today, Donald Trump is in the White House.”
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Associated Press: “North Korea said Tuesday that upcoming regular summertime U.S.-South Korean military drills are forcing it to rethink whether it should be committed to the promises it has made to the United States. It cited its moratorium on nuclear and missile tests and other steps aimed at improving ties with Washington.”
“The statement said Trump vowed to suspend military drills with South Korea during his first and third meetings with Kim, but the planned summertime drills with Seoul and the deployment of weapons in the South show that Washington is not fulfilling that promise.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) told WKRN that he will work to change a state law that requires the state’s governor to declare July 13 as “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day,” in honor of the Confederate Army general and the Ku Klux Klan’s early leader.
National Journal: “Swing-seat freshman Democrats raised a collective $24 million in the second quarter of 2019, a staggering sum that will provide an early fortification for key House battlegrounds and complicate Republicans’ attempts to reclaim the majority.”
“It’s the latest sign that the cash influx that boosted dozens of Democratic candidates to victory last November isn’t dissipating, even with the next election still more than a year away and with some two-dozen presidential candidates competing for donations.”
“A federal judge on Tuesday issued an order prohibiting Roger Stone, a longtime ally and adviser of President Trump, from posting anything on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter after finding he violated her previous order limiting what he could say publicly about his case,” BuzzFeed News reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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