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Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) has pardoned a couple who pointed guns at protesters passing their home last summer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor charges, and each were to pay fines without facing jail time. The governor has made repeated statements saying he would pardon the couple.
Associated Press: “The Biden administration will announce a new 60-day eviction moratorium that would protect areas where 90% of the U.S. population lives.”
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified a legal authority for a new and different moratorium that would be for areas with high and substantial increases in COVID-19 infections.”
“The speaker of the New York State Assembly said on Tuesday that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had lost the support of the Democratic majority in the assembly and could no longer serve as governor,” the New York Times reports.
“The statement from Speaker Carl Heastie, came after an emergency meeting with fellow Democratic members on Tuesday to discuss how the body — which has the sole power to impeach Gov. Andrew Cuomo — should address the attorney general’s findings that Mr. Cuomo had sexually harassed multiple women, most of them state employees.”
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), one of the most prominent Black women in Congress and an ally of President Biden, has signaled she is open to running for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022 under encouragement from some Democrats, the Washington Post reports.
John Cassidy: “The long and the short of all this is that Biden and other Democratic leaders are facing a dual challenge. If they don’t want to rely on Republican votes in the House to pass the infrastructure bill, they will have to somehow pair it with the big reconciliation package. At the same time, maintaining Party unity to pass the reconciliation package must be their overriding priority.”
‘This will involve persuading Sinema; Manchin; Bernie Sanders, the head of the Senate Budget Committee; and A.O.C.—a group with vastly different political priorities—to come together. Equally important will be maintaining the support of some of the less vocal centrist Democrats who are facing tough reelection challenges next year, such as Mark Kelly, Sinema’s colleague in Arizona, and Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire.”
“For Biden, but also for the country, the stakes are very high.”
President Biden called on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to resign on Tuesday after an independent investigation found that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, including employees in his office, in violation of state and federal law.
More than a year after George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer prompted debate over police reform and whether to slash law enforcement funding, a half-dozen police chiefs and high-ranking law enforcement officers have moved to run for higher office, the Associated Press reports.
A new Axios/Ipsos poll finds that 79% of vaccinated respondents blame the unvaccinated for the rising cases of Covid-19. In addition, 36% also point to former President Trump, while 33% blame conservative media and 30% say people from other countries traveling to the United States are responsible.
Among the unvaccinated respondents, 37% blame people traveling to other countries for rising infection rates in the U.S, 27% point the mainstream media and 21% say it is President Biden’s fault.
“There should be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment and must send a clear message that this behavior is not tolerated.”
— New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), in a tweet from 2013.
McClatchy: “Republican leaders are stressing they want a robust amendment process for the 2,700 page bill that isn’t rushed.”
Said McConnell: “Our full consideration of this bill must not be choked off by any artificial timetable that our Democratic colleagues may have penciled out for political purposes.”
“But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would like a final vote on the sweeping bill to take place this week and is urging a faster process.”
Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) reiterated their call for Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to step down.
From their joint statement: “The people of New York deserve better leadership in the governor’s office. We continue to believe that the Governor should resign.”
The Hill reports New York’s entire congressional delegation is now calling for Cuomo’s resignation.
“Staff members at the Democratic National Committee are set to be represented by a union, the first time a national party organization will have a unionized workforce,” the New York Times reports.
“Roughly 150 employees at the committee will join the Service Employees International Union Local 500, a group that represents public-sector workers in the District of Columbia and across Maryland.”
A month before Rudy Giuliani “made Four Seasons Total Landscaping a perfectly odd footnote in U.S. political history, the Trump campaign made a fairly sizable expense to another landscaping company with an almost identical name,” Politico reports.
“Tennessee has sent nearly half a million dollars to farmers who have vaccinated their cattle against respiratory diseases and other maladies over the past two years,” the Associated Press reports.
Said Gov. Bill Lee (R) — whose administration started the vaccination incentive program for cattle — of incentives for Covid-19 vaccines: “I don’t think that’s the role of government. The role of government is to make it available and then to encourage folks to get a vaccine.”
“During a closed-door lunch last week with some of his most vulnerable incumbents, House Democrats’ campaign chief delivered a blunt warning: If the midterms were held now, they would lose the majority,” Politico reports.
“Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) followed that bleak forecast, which was confirmed by multiple people familiar with the conversation, with new polling that showed Democrats falling behind Republicans by a half-dozen points on a generic ballot in battleground districts. Maloney advised the party to course-correct ahead of 2022 by doing more to promote President Joe Biden’s agenda, which remains popular with swing voters.”
Associated Press: “The Taliban pressed ahead with their advances in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, capturing nine out of 10 districts of the Helmand provincial capital, residents and officials said. Afghan government forces launched airstrikes, backed by the U.S., in a desperate effort to defend the city of Lashkar Gah.”
“The fall of Lashkar Gah would be a major turning point in the offensive the Taliban have waged over the past months as U.S. and NATO forces complete their pullout from the war-torn country. It would also be the first provincial capital captured by the Taliban in years.”
“At least one Arizona state senator wants to jail the Republican-majority board of supervisors in Maricopa County after the county rejected new subpoenas from the Senate for election materials,” TPM reports.
Said state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R): “I would have arrested all of these people already if I had the power to do so. I vote to arrest. Arrest and put them in solitary.”
A new Core Decision Analytics poll in California finds Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) leading in the recall race 49% to 42% among likely voters.
Among “definite” voters, Newsom leads 50% to 43%.
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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.
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