Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) seemingly slams the Democratic leadership in an interview with The Guardian.
Said Sanders: “We have tried a strategy over the last several months, which has been mostly backdoor negotiations with a handful of senators. It hasn’t succeeded on Build Back Better or on voting rights. It has demoralized millions of Americans.”
“Sixteen major U.S. universities, including Yale University, Georgetown University and Northwestern University, are being sued for alleged antitrust violations because of the way they work together to determine financial-aid awards for students,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has described deadly violence last week as an attempted coup d’etat,” the BBC reports.
“He told leaders of a military alliance of ex-Soviet states the action had been co-ordinated by a ‘single center,’ but did not name those responsible.”
Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) “announced Monday that he won’t seek reelection in 2022, a decision that is sure to upend Colorado’s political landscape heading into the midterm elections in Nocember,” the Colorado Sun reports.
Politico: “His decision surprises many in his party because he emerged from his state’s redistricting process largely unscathed. His new district would’ve backed President Joe Biden by about 14.5 percentage points in 2020.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Breitbart that if he becomes Speaker, he will move to strip Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from their posts on the House Intelligence Committee, and remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her spot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Said McCarthy: “The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who can be on committees. Never in the history of Congress have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on committee.”
Rolling Stone: “At this point in human evolution, burning coal for power is one of the stupidest things humans do. Coal plants are engines of destruction, not progress. Thanks to the rapid evolution of clean energy, there are many better, cheaper, cleaner ways to power our lives. The only reason anyone still burns coal today is because of the enormous political power and inertia that the industry has acquired since the 19th century.”
“In America, that power and inertia is embodied in the cruel and cartoonish character of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who, paradoxically, may have more control over the trajectory of the climate crisis than any other person on the planet right now.”
“With Russian troops massing along Ukraine’s borders, American and Russian diplomats made clear after an intense round of negotiations on Monday that while the two sides would keep talking, they remain far from agreement on meeting each other’s security concerns,” the New York Times reports.
“Russian officials said they told their American counterparts they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a series of talks that lasted nearly eight hours.”
The special election for former Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) vacant seat will be held April 5, with a runoff set for June 7 if no one receives 50% of the vote, the Sacramento Bee reports.
“Treasury Department officials on Monday said that the Internal Revenue Service will face ‘enormous challenges’ during this year’s tax filing season, warning of delays to refunds and other taxpayer services,” the Washington Post reports.
“The IRS closed last filing season with more than 35 million unprocessed returns — a fourfold increase from the last year before the pandemic. As the backlog increased, the IRS also failed to respond to the enormous increase in calls for assistance.”
“It is no great secret that the Republican party is winning more and more support from working people. It’s not because the Republican party has anything to say to them. It’s because in too many ways the Democratic party has turned its back on the working class.”
— Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview with The Guardian.
Jonathan Bernstein: “Trump wasn’t deterred after the 2020 election by the plain meaning of the law and the Constitution. Had enough Republicans in key positions gone along with him, it’s quite possible he would have successfully remained in office despite losing the election, and that would be even more true in a future scenario in which Trump allies held congressional majorities.”
“Moreover, there’s always a danger of fighting the last war. In 2020, the threat seemed to be in what happened after the votes were counted. Next time, the threat could be in the counting of the ballots, or what happens before the ballots are counted. What this means is that those who support the republic will need to fight for it, and not just through legislative fixes.”
Jamal Simmons, the new communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, repeatedly wrote on Twitter that his former boss, Al Gore, won the 2000 presidential election and that George W. Bush was an “illegitimate” president, Fox News reports.
Tim Miller spent a week listening to Steve Bannon’s podcast.
“What I found was that their effort to overthrow the government has been undeterred by the initial setback of Joe Biden being inaugurated. While Republican elites try to minimize the events of Jan. 6th, the War Room and their minions have continued to take the coup both literally and seriously. In their view the Biden “regime” is illegitimate and the regime’s medical establishment has covered up nearly a half a million deaths from the COVID vaccines.”
“A group of North Carolina voters told state officials they want Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) disqualified as a congressional candidate, citing his involvement in last January’s rally in Washington questioning the presidential election outcome before a Capitol riot later that day,” ABC News reports.
Alan Dershowitz lobbied Donald Trump to pre-emptively pardon Ghislaine Maxwell during the final days of his presidency after talks with her family, the Times of London reports.
A new AP-NORC poll finds just 37% of Americans name the coronavirus as one of their top five priorities for the government to work on in 2022, compared with 53% who said it was a leading priority at the same time a year ago.
The economy outpaced the pandemic in the open-ended question, with 68% of respondents mentioning it in some way as a top 2022 concern.
“The prosecutor weighing whether Donald Trump and others committed crimes by trying to pressure Georgia officials to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory said a decision on whether to bring charges could come as early as the first half of this year,” the AP reports.
Former President Donald Trump tore into Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) after the South Dakota Republican rejected Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election, The Hill reports.
Said Trump, in a lengthy statement: “Is he crazy or just stupid? The numbers are conclusive, and the fraudulent and irregular votes are massive. The only reason he did this is because he got my endorsement and easily won his state in 2020, so now he thinks he has time, and those are the only ones, the weak, who will break away.”
He added: “Even though his election will not be coming up for 5 years, I will never endorse this jerk again.”
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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.