“A federal judge dismissed most claims filed by activists and civil liberties groups who accused the Trump administration of violating the civil rights of protesters who were forcefully removed by police before then-President Donald Trump walked to a church near the White House for a photo op,” the Associated Press reports.
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Police Unions Hold a Veto Over Reform
Adam Serwer: “Like any other type of union, police unions view their duty as protecting the interests of their dues-paying members. Yet these unions are fundamentally different, because their members are armed agents of the state.”
“Americans are presently engaged in a debate about how to reform police departments to prevent the unlawful killing of civilians by officers, as well as other, nonlethal abuses of power. Reining in police unions may not seem like the most urgent response to this crisis.”
“But no reform effort can hope to succeed given their power today.”
Majority In Iowa Disapprove of Biden
A new Des Moines Register poll finds President Joe Biden’s approval rating among Iowans is underwater six months into his term in office, with 43% approving of the job he is doing and 52% disapproving.
Eric Adams Hopes to Revive Machine Politics
Slow Boring: “His campaign has not laid out a clear set of ideas about how to govern the city but instead has focused on building a coalition between leading unions, some business interests, churches, and what’s left of the Democratic Party apparatus. These groups are part of the warp and woof of the city and its politics, providing campaign workers in off-off-cycle city council races, lobbying administrative agencies, and mastering the dark arts of navigating the city’s Byzantine ballot access system. Adams has held event after event touting and cementing this coalition.”
“By contrast, the policy section of his website is a bunch of blog posts and platitudes — an afterthought. The coalition is the point. Adams is trying to create a political machine for the 21st century.”
Quote of the Day
“I never used the word concede. I have not conceded. There is a tremendous percentage that thinks the election was rigged and stolen.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the Dallas Morning News, disputing that he admitted last week that Joe Biden won the election.
Dead People Can Technically Still Vote In Montana
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) claimed that changes to state voting laws would stop dead people from voting in Montana, the Helena Independent Record reports.
Said Gianforte: “We’re cleaning up our voter rolls so dead people don’t vote anymore.”
However, “the new law does not change a state statue allowing the vote of an elector who returns their completed absentee ballot and then dies before Election Day to be counted.”
Democrats Have a Deep Reservoir for 2022
Ron Brownstein: “There are nearly 91 million individual Americans who have voted Democratic in at least one of those three elections… Even with Donald Trump’s formidable success at energizing his supporters, that’s significantly more than the slightly more than 82 million voters who backed Republicans in at least one of the past three elections.”
Said former NRCC Executive Director John Rogers: “That’s the way Democrats can avoid the usual losses in the midterm: They have the names and addresses.”
Kim Jong Un’s Sister Dismisses Future Talks
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dismissed prospects for an early resumption of diplomacy with the United States, saying that U.S. expectations of talks would “plunge them into a greater disappointment,” NBC News reports.
Trump Offers to Back Any Challenger to John Katko
“Former president Donald Trump is offering to help back a primary challenger to Rep. John Katko, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him in January,” the Syracuse Post-Standard reports.
Said Trump: “Katko will never win again. He is bad news… Will help with campaign – find a great candidate.”
Katko represents a district that Joe Biden carried by 9 points in 2020.
Texas Governor Leads Revolt Against Biden
Politico: “In the span of a week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed bills restricting the teaching of critical race theory and allowing Texans to carry handguns without a license. He’s preparing to order state lawmakers back into a special session to pass legislation restricting voting access, a GOP priority. And in the most pugilistic affront to President Joe Biden’s White House yet, he announced Texas will build its own border wall.”
“Less than six months into Biden’s presidency, Texas conservatives are in revolt against the new administration. And Abbott, the often overshadowed governor of the nation’s biggest red state, is emerging as an unlikely leader of the Biden resistance.”
Trump Not Really Interested In Being Speaker
Former President Donald Trump addressed the speculation he might try to become Speaker if Republicans win back the House next year in an interview with CBN.
Said Trump: “Well, I’ve heard the talk and it’s getting more and more. But it’s not something that I would’ve considered but it is certainly — there’s a lot of talk about it. I have a good relationship with Kevin McCarthy and hopefully we will do everything traditionally. But the election was a horrible, horrible thing for our country.”
Biden Could Meet Again on Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan
Punchbowl News: “The White House is dispatching three of its top aides to Capitol Hill today for a flurry of meetings with senators, with the aim of trying to get a better handle on whether a bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal is possible.”
“Assuming that these meetings go well, the administration plans to invite senators from this group to meet with Biden later this week at the White House.”
However: “You should still be skeptical that a deal will come together quickly. These kinds of agreements take forever to turn into legislative text. They still haven’t even settled on the right pay-for mix. We’re really at the beginning of the interesting part.”
New York Faces Lasting Economic Toll as Pandemic Eases
“As the national economy recovers from the pandemic and begins to take off, New York City is lagging, with changing patterns of work and travel threatening the engines that have long powered its jobs and prosperity,” the New York Times reports.
“New York has suffered deeper job losses as a share of its work force than any other big American city. And while the country has regained two-thirds of the positions it lost after the coronavirus arrived, New York has recouped fewer than half, leaving a deficit of more than 500,000 jobs.”
Delta Variant Spreading In Under-Vaccinated Counties
“Early evidence suggests that the highly contagious delta variant, which has prompted concern worldwide as it leads to new surges of Covid-19 across the globe, is spreading in under-vaccinated pockets of the U.S.,” Bloomberg reports.
“The ongoing spread of the variant in pockets of low vaccine uptake are troubling because they create more opportunities for the virus to thrive and mutate. The longer the virus spreads, the more chances it has to create easier inroads into human cells, and potentially take on deadlier forms.”
Obama Backs Manchin’s Voting Rights Plan
Barack Obama told Yahoo News that he supports Sen. Joe Manchin’s voting rights proposal, calling it a “product of compromise” as the landmark bill struggles towards a crucial vote in the US Senate on Tuesday, The Guardian reports.
Said Obama: “I have tried to make it a policy not to weigh in on the day-to-day scrum in Washington, but what is happening this week is more than just a particular bill coming up or not coming up to a vote.”
He added: “I do want folks who may not be paying close attention to what’s happening … to understand the stakes involved here, and why this debate is so vitally important to the future of our country.”
Economy Is Showing Sustained Progress
“Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Monday that job growth should pick up in coming months and temporary inflation pressures should ease as the economy continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Paul Krugman: The week inflation panic died.
Justice Official Nearly Quit Over Trump Election Pressure
Wall Street Journal: “John Demers, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said the sole time in his three-year tenure he considered resigning came when the agency fell under pressure from Trump to pursue baseless claims of election fraud.”
“In early January, Mr. Trump was threatening to fire the acting attorney general over the sought-after election investigation, and, Mr. Demers recalled Monday, he was trying to figure out who would sign foreign intelligence surveillance requests and conduct other agency business if he resigned in protest along with other leading officials.”
Where Voting Access Is Actually Expanding
Politico: “Two states that switched during the pandemic to universal mail voting — mailing ballots to all active registered voters in each election — will now continue that practice permanently, for at least general elections: Nevada and Vermont. Several other states are moving to allow no-excuse mail voting permanently, after allowing it temporarily while Covid-19 raged in 2020.”
“And while many of the state-level expansions of voting programs are happening in blue states, some red states have made changes as well. Kentucky, where Republicans have legislative supermajorities and Trump won the presidential contest by 25 points in 2020, codified in-person early voting for the first time this year.”
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☑️ SECRETS by Fred Ellis Brock, the third novel in The Seven trilogy, now available on Amazon, etc. A thriller out of today’s headlines: murder, treason, and UFO conspiracies. Published by Wyatt-MacKenzie.
☑️ On the American Exchange podcast, ex-pat Erich McElroy reaches across from London to try and find out what is happening to his home country. Past guests include Mary Trump, SE Cupp, Anthony Scaramucci and more.
☑️ A House Divided: Slavery and American Politics from the Constitution to the Civil War by Ben McNitt - on Amazon - Barnes & Nobel Bookstore
