Archives for September 13, 2023 at 10:03 am EDT

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House Impeachment Probe Is Solely About Revenge

September 13, 2023 at 10:03 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jonathan Chait: “That House Republicans are now launching an impeachment inquiry over this very same charge seems not exactly coincidental. It is also not a surprise that Trump has been privately urging House Republicans to impeach Biden.”

“What has transformed this longstanding desire into an actual impeachment investigation is not any investigative finding, but simply an impatience by Trump and his supporters to get on with it.”

Said Trump: “Either impeach the bum, or fade into oblivion. They did it to us!”

“Yet the fact that Republicans have been threatening a revenge impeachment against the next Democratic president literally since Trump’s first impeachment has been oddly absent from news coverage.”

Brett Kavanaugh Accuser to Release Memoir

September 13, 2023 at 9:58 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The California professor who testified that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had assaulted her while they were in high school has written a memoir,” the AP reports.

“Christine Blasey’s Ford’s One Way Back is scheduled for publication next March.”

According to St. Martin’s Press, she will share “riveting new details about the lead-up” to her testimony in 2018; “its overwhelming aftermath,” when she allegedly received death threats and was unable to live at her home; and “how people unknown to her around the world restored her faith in humanity.”

One Way Back: A Memoir

Amazon Kindle Edition
Ford, Christine Blasey (Author)
English (Publication Language)
308 Pages - 03/19/2024 (Publication Date) - St. Martin's Press (Publisher)

Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production

September 13, 2023 at 9:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Russia has managed to overcome sanctions and export controls imposed by the West to expand its missile production beyond prewar levels, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials, leaving Ukraine especially vulnerable to intensified attacks in the coming months,” the New York Times reports.

Tax Cuts Are Here to Stay

September 13, 2023 at 9:25 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“President Biden and Republicans are gearing up for a hyperbolic election-year battle over extending the 2017 law that lowered taxes for individuals and businesses. Ignore the noise. Most of the fight is already over, and tax cuts are winning again,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The core individual tax provisions of the 2017 law, which Republicans pushed through Congress and then-president Donald Trump signed, are scheduled to expire after 2025. That means lawmakers will have to revisit the tax cuts shortly after the election, no matter who wins control of Congress and the White House. Biden calls the law an expensive failure and an unjustified giveaway to the wealthy, while Republicans promise to extend all of the tax cuts, which they see as an unqualified economic success.”

“The reality: Even if Biden is re-elected, most of the 2017 law isn’t going away. In his budget, Biden has already proposed extending Trump’s tax cuts for almost all households, and he has promised to avoid raising taxes on anyone making under $400,000.”

Biden Ramps Up His Fundraising

September 13, 2023 at 9:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“President Joe Biden’s reelection team is escalating its fundraising efforts, salting away cash as Republicans battle over whether Donald Trump should be their standard-bearer next year,” Bloomberg reports.

“Biden will headline at least nine fundraisers before month’s end.”

How Impeachment Could Backfire on Republicans

September 13, 2023 at 9:01 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Financial Times: “Most Democrats and even some Republicans say the case for opening an impeachment inquiry may be among the weakest ever against a sitting president. While federal prosecutors believe they have found enough to indict Hunter Biden in a tax and firearms case this month, no evidence has yet been presented to show wrongdoing by the president in any of his son’s other business affairs.”

“Yet the Speaker’s move may be as much about preservation of his own political power as the merits of the case.”

Even former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who launched Bill Clinton’s impeachment 25 years ago, warned that if Republicans “go too fast, it could backfire.”

U.S. Inflation Picked Up in August

September 13, 2023 at 8:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Inflation picked up in August as gasoline prices jumped, but underlying price pressures stayed mostly mild,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

New York Times: “The increases in headline and core inflation were slightly above consensus forecasts and now become a political headache for President Biden, who has been celebrating falling price growth.”

Biden in the Books

September 13, 2023 at 8:29 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

David Weigel reviews The Last Politician by Franklin Foer.

“Foer’s book, the most far-reaching study of the Biden White House so far, presents an aging president who’s nonetheless fully engaged in the job, stumbling more when he loses his temper — blurting out Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s private negotiating position, telling a Democrat who resists the Build Back Better package that she’s ‘the opposition’ — than when he loses his train of thought.”

“But this story is so distant from most coverage of Biden, especially on the right, that it reads like alternate history. To many voters, Biden is presented as too frail to carry out even basic duties, leaving his aides to secretly run the country in his stead. In the first books to document his presidency, the picture is of a leader who sounds shaky in public, but is the dominant force in his White House.”

The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future

Amazon Kindle Edition
Foer, Franklin (Author)
English (Publication Language)
429 Pages - 09/05/2023 (Publication Date) - Penguin Press (Publisher)

Tuberville Refuses to Budge on Military Promotions

September 13, 2023 at 8:13 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is refusing to back down from his decision to hold up more than 300 non-political military promotions, despite growing pressure from Senate Republican colleagues and leaders,” The Hill reports.

“Fellow Republican senators have criticized Tuberville’s strategy as a ‘mistake,’ and urged him to narrow his holds to Biden nominees who make policy decision and allow stalled non-political military personnel to continue advancing in their careers.”

Lauren Boebert’s Split Personality

September 13, 2023 at 8:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “It’s no accident that Boebert’s profile in her home state these days is diverging from the Freedom Caucus rabble-rouser she’s known as on the Hill. After squeaking through a recount to a second term last fall against Democrat Adam Frisch — Boebert won by just 546 votes — it became clear that her rhetorical bomb-throwing was wearing on GOP voters.”

“Boebert is hardly the only member projecting a different version of herself in the Capitol than she does back home. But her embrace of a political split personality illustrates the limits of raucous Trump-first conservatism in a competitive district. Her Freedom Caucus stardom hasn’t immunized her from the risk of playing more to the GOP base than voters back home.”

GOP Senator Reads Graphic Sex Scenes Aloud

September 13, 2023 at 7:56 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Let the record show that Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) used the words “dildo,” “cock,” and “strap-on” at a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Daily Beast reports.

The video is especially cringeworthy.

Greene Plotted Impeachment with Trump at Dinner

September 13, 2023 at 7:50 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told the New York Times that she had dinner with Donald Trump over the weekend and laid out her impeachment strategy, telling the former president she wanted the inquiry to be “long and excruciatingly painful for Joe Biden.”

Biden’s Words Fuel GOP’s Impeachment Push

September 13, 2023 at 7:47 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Just before the 2020 election, Joe Biden and his campaign said his son Hunter hadn’t made money from China — and that Biden hadn’t met one of Hunter’s Ukrainian business associates while he was vice president, except for maybe a brief hello,” Axios reports.

“Both of those claims were false, according to recent sworn testimony by Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer.”

“House Republican leaders now have zeroed in on those two denials by Joe Biden in 2020 to help justify an impeachment inquiry into the president.”

Democrats Need to Realize There’s No Alternative to Biden

September 13, 2023 at 7:09 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sidney Blumenthal: “It is the Democrats who pull Biden underwater. They see his physical faults and shudder at his political fall. He is 80, his hair thinned, his gait slower and more careful. He is not eloquent. The slight hesitation of the stutter he overcame as a child seems occasionally to return. He is not Mick Jagger strutting at 80. The intensity of concern among Democrats about Biden is in direct proportion to their panic about Trump. They see in his fragility their own predicament. He is the screen on which they project their anxiety, insecurity and fear. They suffer from a crisis of bad nerves.”

“The Democrats’ withholding creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. Spooked by the shadow of Trump, they react with disapproval of Biden, whose numbers are stagnant, flashing the sign that makes them more frightened. They do not censure Biden or dislike him. But they hope for a counter-factual scenario. There is none.”

Why Biden Should Step Aside

September 13, 2023 at 7:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

David Ignatius: “What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech. With an unexpectedly steady hand, he passed some of the most important domestic legislation in recent decades. In foreign policy, he managed the delicate balance of helping Ukraine fight Russia without getting America itself into a war. In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.”

“But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”

Biden has called David Ignatius his “favorite columnist.”

Auto Workers Threaten Strikes at Certain Plants

September 13, 2023 at 6:57 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The United Auto Workers union plans to hold targeted strikes at certain U.S. auto factories if it can’t reach new labor deals with Detroit automakers by late Thursday, an unusual strategy that could broadly disrupt assembly-line production,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Politico: Democratic lawmakers rev rhetoric amid UAW strike threat.

‘The Murder Capital of California”

September 13, 2023 at 6:50 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) deep-red Bakersfield district the “murder capital of California,” Politico reports.

He added’ “Two and a half times the murder rate of Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco.”

White House Urges News Execs to Ramp Up Scrutiny of GOP

September 13, 2023 at 6:47 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The White House plans to send a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite having found no evidence of a crime,” CNN reports.