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Kate Coyne McCoy, a top Democratic strategist from Rhode Island, is under fire for tweeting “It’s wrong to hope he dies from COVID, right? Asking for a friend” — about Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who was recently diagnosed with Covid-19, the Boston Globe reports.
McCoy has since pulled down the tweet and issued an apology.
Jonathan Bernstein: “On Tuesday, the U.S. finally reached President Joe Biden’s goal of having at least 70% of adults receive their first vaccination shot — except that Biden back in May had set the goal for July 4, and Tuesday was the second day of August.”
“That seems like a clear loss for Biden. But it turned out that setting and failing to hit the goal did no noticeable damage to the president. Yes, plenty of reporters noticed it and there were some stories about it on July 4. Hitting 70%, moreover, was a news story framed by the fact that it was a month later than Biden had wanted.”
“Yet there’s been little blame cast on the administration for falling short.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “sexually harassed multiple women, including current and former government workers, and retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public, according to a much anticipated report from the New York State attorney general released on Tuesday,” the New York Times reports.
“The 165-page report said that Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, and his aides cultivated a toxic work environment in his office that was rife with fear and intimidation, and helped enable ‘harassment to occur and created a hostile work environment.'”
“The findings of the report could fuel support for impeachment proceedings against Mr. Cuomo in the State Legislature, which Democrats overwhelmingly control, lead to additional calls for his resignation and influence public opinion as he considers running for a fourth term.”
Former White House COVID Response advisor Andy Slavitt told CBS News that he expects New York City’s new policy of requiring vaccination for many indoors activities “will be copied around the country.”
“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will brief Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats on Tuesday morning about the struggling emergency rental assistance program as the Biden administration scrambles to keep people in their homes following the expiration of a temporary eviction moratorium,” the New York Times reports.
“The meeting comes as the White House is facing an uproar from progressive Democrats, who are faulting the administration for not finding a way to extend the eviction ban that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed last fall as a Covid-19 relief measure.”
GDP growth under Donald Trump — a measure he frequently touted to show his economic prowess — was actually the worst since Herbert Hoover was president during the Great Depression, Bloomberg reports.
And quarterly GDP data, which only dates back to Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency beginning in 1953, puts Trump dead last among the dozen presidents since then.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) “announced Tuesday morning that New York City will require proof of vaccination for people participating in indoor activities, including at restaurants, gyms and performances, his latest attempt to spur more vaccinations. The mandate also applies to workers at those places,” the New York Times reports.
“The policy is similar to mandates issued in France and Italy last month and is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.”
New York Times: “A Republican-linked group said on Monday that it was beginning a recall campaign backed by undisclosed donors to brand Democrats and their allies as soft on crime by targeting progressive prosecutors.”
“The initial focus is three prosecutors who were elected in the affluent Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in 2019 amid a national wave of pledges by Democrats to make law enforcement fairer and more humane.”
“I’m not even sure what Glenn’s agenda is… but politics is a dirty business, and you’re dealing with a lot of irrational voters.”
— A former colleague of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin (R), quoted by the Washington Post.
“Former President Donald Trump said this week that he will not move to stop former Justice Department officials from testifying before two committees that are investigating the Trump administration’s efforts to subvert the results of the presidential election,” the New York Times reports.
“By allowing his former Justice Department officials to speak with investigators, Mr. Trump has paved the way for new details to emerge about his efforts to delegitimize the outcome of the election.”
“Six months since leaving office, former President Donald Trump is sitting on a $102 million war chest,” Politico reports.
“But having whipped his supporters into a frenzy with pledges to overturn the election and promises to support Republican candidates in the midterms, he is not spending his campaign money on either.”
“A National Labor Relations Board official on Monday recommended that the union vote at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer should be redone, finding that Amazon’s anti-union tactics improperly interfered with workers’ rights to vote,” the Alabama Political Reporter reports.
“Amazon workers voted 1,798 to 738 against unionizing, but the union appealed the results, alleging Amazon used numerous anti-union tactics, which the company has denied.”
“A Florida school district has dropped its mask mandate for schools after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued an executive order that would cut off funding to schools that did so,” The Hill reports.
Peter Feaman, a top RNC official in Florida, has spread anti-vaccine rhetoric and misinformation, comparing the Biden administration’s vaccine efforts to Nazi-era “brown shirts,” and twice calling the vaccines “the mark of the beast,” a reference to a symbol from the biblical Book of Revelations showing allegiance to Satan, CNN reports.
“President Joe Biden has a tough decision in choosing the next Federal Reserve chair: Play it safe by giving Jerome Powell a second term or take a chance on a liberal like Lael Brainard, who would please progressives in Congress yet potentially agitate Wall Street,” Bloomberg reports.
“Either path offers speed bumps for the White House. Powell would likely sail to Senate confirmation, giving the Biden administration a significant bipartisan win. Financial markets would likely remain calm, but Biden would likely disappoint some progressive Democrats he needs for other issues.”
“A liberal nominee, like Fed Governor Brainard, who hews more closely to Biden’s economic agenda and is far more of a hawk on banking regulations, would likely keep Democratic senators like Elizabeth Warren and Banking Chair Sherrod Brown happy. Yet it would presage a bruising confirmation fight, potentially even a 50-50 vote with Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaker.”
A Belarusian antigovernment activist was found hanged in a park near his home in the Ukrainian capital, the New York Times reports.
Axios: “The U.S. has shipped and donated more than 110 million coronavirus vaccine doses to over 60 countries.”
“It is more than the combined donations of all other countries.”
An important video: Dr. Catherine O’Neal describes the dire situation in Louisiana at the state’s largest hospital in Baton Rouge.
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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.