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Archives for October 2017

‘Over Half My Life’

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From a happy Political Wire reader:

Thank you, as always, for all that you do. To reiterate a message you’ve apparently received from other subscribers, Political Wire is one of the first news sources I read in the morning, and the last one that I check at night. Your work and dedication in tumultuous times offers essential context that I do not find anywhere else.

And another:

I’ve loved this site ever since I was a high schooler in the early 2000’s anxiously following the ‘00 election/recount craziness from my home in Florida. Now that I’m 30, I have closely followed your work here for over half of my life. Wow.

Ever since I was a kid, you have contributed tremendously to my understanding of the world around me and the role that we as citizens can play in making justice a reality for all. I’m a better informed and more engaged participant in our democracy thanks to your work. I am truly, truly grateful. Thank you.

Thanks to everyone who spends part of their day here!

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Collins Lays Out Her Demands for Tax Bill

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Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Bloomberg that “she’s opposed to two tax breaks for the wealthy that her party leaders are pushing for, indicating that her vote won’t be easy to win on President Trump’s top legislative priority.”

Said Collins: “I do not believe that the top rate should be lowered for individuals who are making more than $1 million a year. I don’t think there’s any need to eliminate the estate tax.”

ABA Deems Another Trump Nominee ‘Not Qualified’

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Another one of President Trump’s judicial nominees — this time, to the powerful appellate courts — has been deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association, Politico reports.

Grasz is the second judicial nominee from Trump to get a “not qualified” label from the bar association.

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]A Political Wire reader went through all of the ratings available on the ABA website, back to 1989.  This is only the third unanimous “Not Qualified” over this period.[/alert]

Reaction from Inside the White House

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Jonathan Swan: “Nobody was surprised to learn that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is the first to be publicly indicted, along with his business partner Rick Gates, for alleged money laundering, failing to disclose foreign lobbying, and tax violations.”

“One of those sources told me ‘people are relieved it’s Manafort and not Flynn’ who was indicted.”

“I’ve had dozens of conversations about this subject with administration officials over the past months, and while nobody I’ve spoken to genuinely thinks collusion with Russia happened on the campaign, plenty worry about what Bob Mueller’s crack team of financial investigators will turn up on Trump and his allies.”

Mueller Puts Down a Marker

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Financial Times: “The allegations in the federal indictment of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates — even considered in isolation — are enough to frighten any friend of America. If they are true, Donald Trump’s campaign manager from March to August 2016 — a period encompassing his nomination by the Republican party — was a criminal. Not a criminal in some abstract or technical sense: Mr Manafort is accused of laundering millions of dollars, evading taxes, and concealing his role as a lobbyist for a foreign government.”

“The latter point is the most alarming. It raises the possibility that a foreign power, without knowledge of the electorate, influenced the policy of the party that ultimately won the presidency.”

‘House of Cards’ Will End After Season 6

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Netflix announced today that House of Cards will end after its next season, TechCrunch reports.

“The news comes after actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed that House of Cards star Kevin Spacey made a sexual advance toward him when Rapp was only 14. However, TVLine reports that the decision was not a response to Rapp’s allegations, and in fact was made months ago.”

Mueller Sends a Loud Message to Trump

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Two Takeaways from Mueller’s Indictments

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Lawfare: The first big takeaway from this morning’s flurry of charging and plea documents with respect to Paul Manafort Jr., Richard Gates III, and George Papadopoulos is this: The President of the United States had as his campaign chairman a man who had allegedly served for years as an unregistered foreign agent for a puppet government of Vladimir Putin, a man who was allegedly laundering remarkable sums of money even while running the now-president’s campaign, a man who allegedly lied about all of this to the FBI and the Justice Department.”

“The second big takeaway is even starker: A member of President Trump’s campaign team now admits that he was working with people he knew to be tied to the Russian government to ‘arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government officials’ and to obtain ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of hacked emails—and that he lied about these activities to the FBI. He briefed President Trump on at least some them.”

“And here’s the rub: This is only Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s opening salvo. As opening salvos go, it’s a doozy.”

Trump Will Pick Powell to Lead the Fed

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President Trump is expected to name Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet L. Yellen, the current chairwoman whose term expires early next year, the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Powell, a Fed governor since 2012, is a Republican with deep roots in the party’s establishment and in the financial industry. He has steadily supported the Fed’s current approach to monetary policy and financial regulation, creating an expectation that he would bring continuity to the role.”

Is Trump’s Base Beginning to Fray?

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First Read: “So Trump’s standing with independents and the middle of the electorate is Problem #1 for him in the NBC/WSJ poll. Problem #2 is the sign that his base is beginning to fray, even if it’s ever so slightly.”

“The drop in Trump’s overall approval rating — from 43 percent in September to 38 percent now — comes from independents, whites (who shifted from 51 percent approval a month ago to 47 percent now) and whites without a college degree (from 58 percent to 51 percent).”

Kasich Is Already Running for President Again

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New York Magazine: “Kasich 2020 is not just a media proposition. Kasich is a sitting governor exploring a run against a president of his own party — a starkly unusual circumstance. He retains a skeletal campaign staff, and they are helping him to think through his options: Should he run as a Republican in the primaries or as an Independent in the general election?”

“A primary run is plausible, strategists say, if Trump’s approval ratings among Republicans fall below the high 70s, where they’ve been, and Democrats prevail during the midterms, signaling a loosening of the stranglehold of the far-right base on the party. A third-party run is optimal if the major-party candidates represent ideological extremes. Kasich has not declared he’s running, and everyone I spoke to preempted their hypotheticals with caveats. In the Trump era, two years is an eternity…. But among the party’s intelligentsia, all agree there is a common wish that the White House be occupied by a different Republican.”

Ex-Trump Adviser Pleads Guilty to False Statements

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George Papadopolous has pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents, becoming the third adviser to President Trump’s campaign to face criminal charges in its investigation, Reuters reports.

Papadopolous is an international energy lawyer who was part of Trump’s advisory team during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The New York Times reports Papadopolous told an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign in April 2016 that Moscow had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” according to court documents unsealed Monday.

Bonus Quote of the Day

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“We’ve got some of the smartest people in America who serve in the Congress, and we’ve got some of the dumbest. We have some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, and some that are Nazis. Congress is nothing more than a slice of America.”

— Former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by Politico.

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt 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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