“I don’t beat anybody up, it’s not really my style, except that jerk.”
— Former House Speaker John Boehner, in an interview with CBS News, on Sen. Ted Cruz.
“I don’t beat anybody up, it’s not really my style, except that jerk.”
— Former House Speaker John Boehner, in an interview with CBS News, on Sen. Ted Cruz.
“The House Ethics committee said it would launch an investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has been accused of a sexual relationship with an underage girl, among a litany of other things,” the Washington Post reports.
“Roberta Jacobson, the former ambassador to Mexico whom President Biden chose as his ‘border czar’ on the National Security Council, will step down at the end of the month, even as the administration struggles to confront a surge of migrants at the nation’s southwestern border,” the New York Times reports.
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“Please get vaccinated so our nutcase of a governor will have less reasons for mindless restrictions!”
— Jerry Falwell Jr., quoted by HuffPost, offering a unique rationale for getting vaccinated.
New York Times: “His preference for engaging in red-meat political fights rather than governing and policymaking have left party leaders in a state of confusion over what they stand for, even when it comes to business, which was once the business of Republicanism. Yet his single term has made it vividly clear what the far right stands against — and how it intends to go about waging its fights.”
“Having, quite literally, abandoned their traditional party platform last year to accommodate Mr. Trump, Republicans have organized themselves around opposition to the perceived excesses of the left and borrowed his scorched-earth tactics as they do battle… While this approach may not be the political equivalent of a well-balanced meal — a plan for long-term recovery — that does not mean it’s a poor strategy for success in the 2022 elections.”
USA Today runs an excerpt of a must-read new book, Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power by Susan Page.
The Arkansas state House has passed a measure that would allow teachers to ignore a transgender student’s preferred name or gender pronouns, the latest in a series of bills targeting the rights of trans children, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports.
Politico: “One of Biden’s all-time favorite sayings is ‘Don’t tell me what you value; show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.'”
“What Biden values, according to this plan, is a sharp break with the past when it comes to how Democrats think about federal spending. The White House is making it clear that fears about deficits are outdated, any pivot to austerity after the recent surge of spending is a non-starter, and the era of budget caps is over. Biden’s embrace of these views isn’t completely new, but it’s always been a little awkward for him to discuss because it’s an implicit admission of the failure of policies that defined the post-2010 Obama-Biden administration…”
“The Biden presidency is clearly a rejection of almost everything that Trump stood for, but what’s not often stated is that, when it comes to economic policy and federal spending, it’s also a rejection of much of what Barack Obama stood for as well.”
Texas Tribune: “Democrats in the Texas Senate overwhelmingly crossed the aisle to vote in favor of the Star Spangled Banner Protection Act, a conservative-backed bill that would require any professional sports teams with contracts with the state government to play the national anthem before the start of a game.”
The Guardian: “Republican-controlled states are spending astronomical sums of their taxpayers’ money to buy pharmaceutical drugs from illicit dealers in a desperate and almost certainly unlawful attempt to carry out lethal injection executions.”
“The most jaw-dropping outlay has been made by Arizona, a state in which Republicans hold both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion. A single-page heavily redacted document obtained by the Guardian records that last October the department of corrections ordered 1,000 vials of pentobarbital sodium salt, each containing 1g, to be shipped in ‘unmarked jars and boxes.’”
At the bottom of the document, the record states: “Amount paid: $1,500,000.”
CBS News: “After more than three decades, a bill that could lead to slavery reparations proposals appears set for a major step forward. The House Judiciary Committee plans to mark up the bill and vote on it Wednesday.”
“If the legislation is reported out of committee, it would set up the first floor vote on the measure since its introduction in 1989.”
NBC News: “Texas Republicans are working to recruit an ‘army’ of 10,000 poll workers and watchers to fight voter fraud in Houston, leaked video of a Harris County Republican Party presentation reveals.”
One official in the video said he is looking for volunteers “that will have the confidence and courage to come down here in these areas.”
He added: “This is where the problems occur. If we don’t do that, this fraud down here is really going to continue.”
Federal prosecutors investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz over sex-trafficking allegations are also considering whether he talked about running a fake candidate in a Florida Senate election to skew the results, the New York Times reports.
Ron Brownstein: “With their opposition to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, Republicans are doubling down on a core bet they’ve made for his presidency: that the GOP can maintain support among its key constituencies while fighting programs that would provide those voters with tangible economic assistance.”
“Last month, every House and Senate Republican opposed Biden’s massive $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, even though it delivered significant benefits to working-class white voters, the GOP’s foundational voting bloc, including increased health-care subsidies and expanded tax credits for families with children. That pattern is repeating with the infrastructure plan, even though it directs billions of dollars to rural communities, which are indispensable to Republican political fortunes.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Only three months removed from supercharged, nationalized elections, Georgia candidates are already lining up to run for statewide office, the U.S. Senate and congressional seats in 2022, seeking a head start in what will be another tumultuous political season in one of the nation’s premier battleground states.”
“It’s all part of what is quickly becoming a seemingly nonstop campaign season in the country’s newest swing state as Democrats try to build on their upset wins in November and January to capture other statewide seats that have eluded them for more than a decade.”
Said veteran GOP strategist Chip Lake: “Georgia was the center of the political universe in the last cycle, and we just might be the center of the political universe this cycle. Whether we want to be or not.”
Former Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) confirmed that he will not challenge Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) in 2022, the Nevada Independent reports.
Said Sandoval: “I have no interest in running and I will not be a candidate.”
John Harris: “Representative democracy, it turns out, means representation for everyone. That includes whizzes and schlumps and reprobates and the dudes at the seaside Hooters 15 minutes from Gaetz’s Panhandle home of Fort Walton Beach, who might find it OK that their member… showed cell phone photos of nude women he supposedly slept with to other members on the House floor.”
Said one lawmaker: “All parts of the Bell Curve of society are well represented.”
“Amazon employees in Alabama voted not to unionize, handing the tech giant a victory in its biggest battle to date against labor-organizing efforts after the contest fueled national debate over working conditions at one of the nation’s largest employers,” the Wall Street Journal 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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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