“Increasingly restless supporters of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell have a new plan of action: Send the Supreme Court physical copies of the pillow maven’s dubious and unsigned 80-plus page court filing that seeks to overturn the 2020 election,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Late last week and again on Wednesday night, supporters called into Lindell’s evening live streaming program to share that they had “mailed” the pillow executive’s drafted case to the high court.”
Ron Brownstein: “For years, Democrats have rarely cited Clinton and the centrist New Democrat movement he led through the ’90s except to renounce his “third way” approach to welfare, crime, and other issues as a violation of the party’s principles. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and even Bill Clinton himself have distanced themselves from key components of his record as president.”
“But now a loose constellation of internal party critics is reprising the Clintonites’ core arguments to make the case that progressives are steering Democrats toward unsustainable and unelectable positions, particularly on cultural and social questions.”
“Just like the centrists who clustered around Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council that he led decades ago, today’s dissenters argue that Democrats risk a sustained exodus from power unless they can recapture more of the culturally conservative voters without a college education who are drifting away from the party.”
“The Elizabeth Dole Foundation has cut ties with Tim Unes, an event planner working on former Senator Bob Dole’s funeral, after the Senate’s top Republican complained that Mr. Unes had been subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 select committee for his work organizing the rally before that day’s attacks,” the New York Times reports.
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“The omicron variant of Covid-19 is 4.2 times more transmissible in its early stage than delta, according to a study by a Japanese scientist who advises the country’s health ministry, a finding likely to confirm fears about the new strain’s contagiousness,” Bloomberg reports.
“It’s a tree that unites us. It brings us together. It’s about the Christmas spirit. It is about the holiday season. It’s about Jesus. It’s about Hanukkah. It is about everything that we stand for as a country.”
— Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt, speaking about the Christmas tree set on fire outside of the Fox News studio.
“Witnesses seeking to evade testimony to the Jan. 6 committee may have landed on their most potent strategy: Pleading the Fifth,” Politico reports.
“Legal experts say the committee has few options once a witness pleads the Fifth — and the choices they do have are risky or impractical.”
“More than 200 million Americans — over 60 percent of the population — have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus,” the New York Times reports.
“The United States remains far behind not only developed countries like Singapore and Portugal, which will soon have vaccinated 90 percent of their populations, but developing nations like Cambodia (over 80 percent).”
Former Rep. Renee Elmers (R-NC) announced on Twitter that she’s running for Congress again in North Carolina’s 4th district — and sent the House GOP gossip mill into overdrive.
Playbook: “Ellmers, you’ll recall, lost her primary in 2016 following allegations that she was having an extramarital affair with Kevin McCarthy, who also lost his bid for speaker around that time in part due to the controversy. (Both denied the allegations.) Oddly enough, her foray back into politics comes as McCarthy is in his best position yet to attain the job he’s wanted for years.”
“Yet the plot thickens: McCarthy met Wednesday with Bo Hines, a former football player and Trump loyalist who is currently running in another North Carolina district — but who is considering switching to run against Ellmers instead. It’s unclear whether McCarthy would endorse in the race, but it’s a safe bet House Republicans will be watching this primary closely.”
“Donald Trump and his associates are systematically reshaping the Republican Party, working to install hand-picked loyalists across federal and state governments and destroy those he feels have been disloyal,” Axios reports.
“If most or all of Trump’s candidates win, he will go into the 2024 election cycle with far more people willing to do his bidding who run the elections in key states.”
“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered a forceful warning to Republican colleagues during a private lunch on Wednesday, saying former President Trump will come down hard on any GOP senators who vote for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) deal to set up a special pathway to raise the debt limit,” The Hill reports.
Punchbowl News: “In many ways, this will be the toughest vote for Senate Republicans this year. Yes, it’s a process vote that very few people outside of D.C. really understand. And yes, Senate Democrats will have to carry the vote on actually increasing the debt limit by themselves.”
“But this has been a particularly bruising episode for McConnell. He’s been beaten up in public and private by rank-and-file GOP senators for the last couple of days, including during a Steering Committee meeting on Wednesday.
“President Joe Biden is ready to urge participants at the first White House Summit for Democracy to reverse an ongoing ‘recession’ of democracy that is playing out at a time of rising authoritarianism around the globe and extraordinary strains on foundational institutions in the U.S., the AP reports.
“The two-day virtual summit that starts Thursday has been billed as an opportunity for leaders and civil society experts from some 110 countries to collaborate on fighting corruption and promoting respect for human rights. But the gathering already has drawn backlash from the United States’ chief adversaries and other nations that were not invited to participate.”
Playbook: “The list includes some of the most committed democracies (Finland and New Zealand), some questionable cases (Serbia), and some places where democracy is slipping (Poland, Philippines, and, er, the United States). On some difficult calls, such as Brazil and India, large democracies that have seen several years of anti-democratic drift, Biden’s team decided to be inclusive. But other edge cases, such as Hungary, they didn’t invite at all.”
“The Biden administration is moving to tighten enforcement of sanctions against Iran, according to senior U.S. officials, the first sign of Washington increasing economic pressure on Tehran as diplomatic efforts to restore the 2015 nuclear deal falter,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“A small group of Senate Democrats is privately invoking the legacy of late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd in an effort to sway Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to support their plans to change the chamber’s rules,” Axios reports.
“Manchin — who holds Byrd’s Senate seat — has often referenced his predecessor’s strong moral conviction and insistence on preserving the Senate as an institution, as justification for some of his tough positions.”
“Even Byrd, one of the most ardent defenders of Senate decorum and procedure, helped change the Senate rules in the face of obstruction, these senators argue.”
“The Senate on Wednesday voted to nix President Biden’s vaccine mandate for larger businesses, handing Republicans a symbolic win,” The Hill reports.
“Senators voted 52-48 on the resolution, which needed a simple majority to be approved. Democratic Sens. Jon Tester and Joe Manchin voted with Republicans, giving it enough support to be sent to the House.”
“The resolution faces an uphill path in the House, where Republicans aren’t able to use a similar fast-track process to force a vote over the objections of Democratic leadership.”
“North Carolina’s highest court on Wednesday delayed the state’s planned March 8 primary until May while state courts review claims of illegal gerrymandering,” the AP reports.
“Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) brought a GOP congressional candidate onto the House floor Tuesday night, likely in violation of House rules,” The Hill reports.
“Cawthorn was able to do so by telling House security that his guest, Tennessee Republican Robby Starbuck, was one of his House staffers.”
“Mark Meadows, facing an imminent threat of criminal contempt of Congress charges, is suing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Jan. 6 select panel,” Politico reports.
Daily Beast: “Meadows’ attorneys wrote in the suit, filed in Washington D.C. federal court on Wednesday, that if Meadows does comply with the committee’s request, he would be ‘illegally coerced into violating the Constitution.'”
“President Joe Biden has picked big money political donor and former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman to be his ambassador to Kenya,” CNBC 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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