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“Less than 48 hours after his shocking defeat in North Carolina’s primary election, Rep. Madison Cawthorn took to Instagram to post a defiant, vengeful, and typo-riddled message promising a ‘Dark MAGA’ comeback,” the Daily Beast reports.
Said Cawthorn: “I am on a mission now to expose those who say and promise one thing yet legislate and work towards another, self-profiteering, globalist goal. It’s time for the rise of the new right, it’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command.”
“President Joe Biden’s decision on whether to forgive student debt will be personal for many of his aides, who are among the millions of Americans carrying loans for college and graduate school,” Bloomberg reports.
“At least 30 senior White House staffers have student loan balances, including Biden’s new press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, and Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council.”
“Nearly 64 percent of adults between the ages of 55 and 64 were working in April, essentially the same rate as in February 2020. That’s a more complete recovery than among most younger age groups,” the New York Times reports.
“The rapid rebound has surprised many economists, who thought that fear of the virus — which is far deadlier for older people — would contribute to a wave of early retirements, especially because many people’s savings had been fattened by years of market gains.”
“The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob issued a request on Thursday for an interview with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), citing evidence the panel has obtained regarding a tour he led through parts of the Capitol complex the day before the attack,” the Washington Post reports.
The Guardian: January 6 panel evidence suggests Congress members led “reconnaissance tours” of the Capitol before attack.
“President Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr is in active discussions with the Jan. 6th investigative committee to appear for a formal transcribed interview,“ Axios reports.
“Barr is likely to cooperate with the committee, according to a source familiar with his thinking.”
“The Oklahoma Legislature gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation’s strictest abortion law,” the New York Times reports.
“The bill is modeled on one that took effect in Texas in September, which has relied on civilian instead of criminal enforcement to work around court challenges. But it goes further than the Texas law, which bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.”
Washington Post: “Under the Oklahoma bill, those who could be punished include anyone who ‘performs or induces’ an abortion; anyone who ‘knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion,’ including paying for one; and anyone who even ‘intends to engage’ in either of the two actions above.”
“House GOP leaders were among the 192 Republicans who voted against providing $28 million in aid to the Food and Drug Administration to address the shortage of baby formula — within days of criticizing President Biden for not doing enough on the issue,” the Washington Post reports.
“Facebook has not yet released a new public policy strategy for the November midterms to refresh and update its rules and tools to protect the elections, something it traditionally touts,” the Washington Post reports.
“And former employees, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they worry that the social media company is already lagging far behind where it needs to be to prevent the spread of misinformation from hurting voters’ understanding and behavior in the primaries and general election.”
Despite his pledge to vote Republican in the next election, Elon Musk told CNBC that he “has no current plans to fund a Republican super PAC in the upcoming U.S. elections, including any that oppose President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race.”
North Korea is “preparing to conduct a nuclear test or a long-range ballistic missile test around the time of President Biden’s trip to the region this week, according to intelligence from Washington and Seoul,” the Washington Post reports.
“From 2013 through 2018, Hunter Biden and his company brought in about $11 million via his roles as an attorney and a board member with a Ukrainian firm accused of bribery and his work with a Chinese businessman now accused of fraud,” according to an NBC News analysis of a copy of Biden’s hard drive and iCloud account and documents released by Republicans on two Senate committees.
“The documents and the analysis, which don’t show what he did to earn millions from his Chinese partners, raise questions about national security, business ethics and potential legal exposure.”
President Biden’s approval rating among Hispanic Americans has plummeted to 26%, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.
Seth Masket: “A few months ago, I did a simple forecast model for the 2022 midterms, suggesting Democrats were in for a rough year. We have some newer economic data since then, and the model looks considerably worse for the Democrats.”
“The Senate prepared to vote Thursday to deliver more than $40 billion in new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, a move which would send the measure to President Biden after a week-long delay sparked by a lone senator’s objection,” the Washington Post reports.
“Republican candidates in upcoming primaries may have a tougher time scoring a coveted endorsement from Donald Trump, according to the former President’s allies, who say he is feeling more risk-averse amid the deadlocked Senate GOP contest in Pennsylvania,” CNN reports.
“A bipartisan group of senators led by Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced legislation Thursday that would take aim at conflicts of interest in the advertising technology industry and force Google to break up its dominant online-ad business,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Jonathan Chait: “The Democratic Party has a lot of problems right now. Many of these problems lie outside its control: A global wave of inflation and continuing waves of coronavirus infection have prevented the recovery Joe Biden imagined when he took office last year, and the party’s slender majority gives it very narrow room to maneuver legislation through Congress.”
“That said, Democrats still have some room to improve their situation. They retain their congressional majority until January, and Joe Manchin has expressed his willingness to negotiate a bill to raise taxes on the rich and fund at least some new programs, including support for green energy. And yet their main response to a looming political and policy catastrophe appears to be fatalistic acceptance.”
“For the 2020 census, all states were not counted equally well for population numbers used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the next decade, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday,” NPR reports.
“A follow-up survey the bureau conducted to measure the national tally’s accuracy found significant net undercount rates in six states: Arkansas (5.04%), Florida (3.48%), Illinois (1.97%), Mississippi (4.11%), Tennessee (4.78%) and Texas (1.92%).”
“It also uncovered significant net overcount rates in eight states — Delaware (5.45%), Hawaii (6.79%), Massachusetts (2.24%), Minnesota (3.84%), New York (3.44%), Ohio (1.49%), Rhode Island (5.05%) and Utah (2.59%).”
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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