“The Spotsylvania County School Board has directed staff to begin removing books that contain ‘sexually explicit’ material from library shelves,” the Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star reports.
Said one school board member: “I think we should throw those books in a fire.”
Another added that he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”
A New Jersey man who punched a police officer during the January 6 Capitol riot was sentenced to 41 months in prison on Wednesday, CNN reports.
“He has no business being in Congress. He should have never been elected. He doesn’t belong there… Sadly, the Republican conference is now characterized by numerous kooks and dangerous cranks, of which he is one.”
— Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), quoted by ABC News, on Rep. Paul Gosar (R–AZ).
Republican billionaire Ken Langone told CNBC that he is going to hold “one of the biggest fundraisers” he’s had for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
Said Langone: “Thank God for Joe Manchin. The guy’s got guts and courage, and he did what he had to do and he’ll continue to do what he has to do.”
Mark Barabak: “That’s because a main job requirement is stepping away from the spotlight, except when cheerleading for the president and his agenda.”
“This requires varying degrees of sycophancy. After four years of emasculation, Mike Pence didn’t seem to mind that his boss, President Trump, wasn’t at all upset that some of Trump’s supporters wished to kill Pence for refusing to illegally overturn Biden’s election. Pence, whatever else he accomplishes in life, has managed to set new standards for tolerance and self-abasement.”
“But there were different, heightened expectations for Harris, chiefly because of her groundbreaking election. No one like her — the first woman, first Black person, first Asian American elected vice president — has ever moved through Washington’s uppermost reaches. Her every move would be unprecedented and surely, it seemed, merit special notice and great amounts of news coverage.”
“The endorsements came in rapid fire as Gov. Brian Kemp (R) stood in his campaign office flanked by some of the state’s top law enforcement officials,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“Normally, the wave of endorsements from GOP figures rallying behind a Republican incumbent would merit little attention. But with a possible primary challenge from former U.S. Sen. David Perdue looming, there was an implicit message tied to Kemp’s Tuesday event: If there’s a primary fight, it will be a bloody one.”
“A major IRS enforcement boost will likely be omitted from a forthcoming top-line revenue estimate of Democrats’ tax-and-spend package, complicating the question of whether the legislation will be fully ‘paid for’ as President Joe Biden has promised,” Bloomberg reports.
“The Biden administration estimates a better funded IRS could bring in $400 billion over a decade through more aggressive audits of corporations and the wealthy. But under budget rules set by Congress and the executive branch, the government’s nonpartisan analysts can’t officially count money that will be spent as also increasing revenue when estimating the cost of legislation.”
A new Monmouth poll finds 65% of Americans support the bipartisan infrastructure plan which just passed Congress and 62% support the social spending legislation currently being considered.
However, Biden currently holds a job performance rating of 42% approve and 50% disapprove. This marks another decline in his approval number since he hit 54% in April.
“Oklahoma’s highest court on Tuesday threw out a 2019 ruling that required Johnson & Johnson to pay the state $465 million for its role in the opioid epidemic,” the New York Times reports.
NBC News: “With one-third of the Senate up for grabs next year and a handful of competitive states likely to decide control, Democrats are looking for any advantage as they try to defend their majority. They’ve been getting some help recently from Republicans.”
“From New England to Arizona, Republicans are struggling to land top-tier recruits even as the deteriorating political climate for Democrats puts them in a strong position to win back the chamber. Party operatives find themselves having to keep a close eye on several Senate hopefuls they see as unelectable, a familiar problem for the GOP.”
“A star Republican congressional candidate in Texas was accused last month by her estranged husband in court documents of ‘cruel and aggressive conduct’ toward his 14-year-old daughter, including verbal abuse and pinching the child to stop her from crying,” the Washington Post reports.
“Monica De La Cruz, a candidate for the 15th Congressional District in Texas, was picked this week by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as a ‘young gun,’ a designation given by the party to candidates who ‘have met a series of rigorous goals and surpassed program benchmarks to establish a clear path to victory.'”
“The effects of 2021’s ‘Great Resignation’ may have reached the halls of the Arizona Legislature, with 11 lawmakers departing this year,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“So far in 2021, one lawmaker has died and 10 voluntarily quit the positions to which they were originally elected to serve.”
“This week was a terrific week… but if you think this week is going to carry us for a year, you’ve got another thing coming.”
— New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), quoted by the New York Times, on the GOP’s political fortunes for the midterm elections.
Sara Goddard is not hopeful.
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
The two-party system seems to be melting down in the United States. A recent Gallup poll found that 62% of Americans agreed that “the parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.”
However, a new Pew Research study shows pretty clearly why that idea is unlikely to gain traction.
After surveying voters on their political views and ideological leanings, Pew came up with nine groups:
It’s worth reading the whole study, but here’s the key graphic:
The three least partisan groups — the Outsider Left, the Ambivalent Right and the Stressed Sideliners — make up 37% of the electorate — a seemingly solid base for a third party. The problem is they have very little in common politically.
In fact, the only thing this group has in common is little interest in politics: “They had the lowest rates of voting in the 2020 presidential election and are less likely than other groups to follow government and public affairs most of the time.”
That makes it nearly impossible for a centrist third party candidate to mobilize voters. Heck, they might not even notice.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) weighed in on latest inflation report: “By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not ‘transitory’ and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.”
Manchin had previously indicated concerns about the impact of the budget reconciliation package on inflation.
“Afghanistan’s ex-finance minister has blamed the government’s fall on corrupt officials who invented ‘ghost soldiers’ and took payments from the Taliban,” the BBC reports.
Khalid Payenda said that “most of the 300,000 troops and police on the government’s books did not exist. He said phantom personnel were added to official lists so that generals could pocket their wages.”
A Kansas school district “has removed more than two dozen books from circulation in the district’s school libraries, citing national attention and challenges to the books elsewhere,” KMUW reports.
“The list of books includes several well-known novels, including The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.”
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.