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What Drives Elizabeth Warren

July 26, 2019 at 11:07 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Joshua Green: “One way to understand her urgency is as the result of a radicalizing moment: Trump’s victory. Four years ago there was talk of a Warren presidential campaign, but she decided not to run, wagering that the best shot to enact her agenda was by working through a powerful Democrat she believed could win—Hillary Clinton. People close to her say Trump’s surprise election left her shocked and filled with regret.”

“Friends say what’s driving her now is a desire to correct that mistake and a conviction that Trump’s election showed voters want change on a scale most Democrats don’t comprehend. She believes Democrats lost in 2016 because they were timid. Trump ditched Republican orthodoxies and brought along union members, blue-collar workers, and other traditionally Democratic voters in the bargain. Warren is making a big bet that taking Trump down requires beating him at his own game: go big and bold or risk losing again on warmed-over incrementalism. That’s why the sweep of her agenda aims for the New Deal or the Great Society.”

What Voters Really Want Is a Public Option

July 26, 2019 at 10:58 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Nate Silver: “Last week, I noted that Bernie Sanders is winning over Democratic primary voters on health care. Whether you love, hate or are indifferent toward his ‘Medicare for All’ plan, polls show Sanders leading when Democratic voters are asked which candidate they think is best able handle to health care.”

“The thing is, though — according to new polling from Marist College this week — Sanders’s plan isn’t actually the most popular idea in the field. Instead, that distinction belongs to what Marist calls ‘Medicare for all that want it,’ or what’s sometimes called a public option — something very similar to Joe Biden’s recently unveiled health care plan, which claims to give almost everyone ‘the choice to purchase a public health insurance option like Medicare.'”

“In the Marist poll, 90% of Democrats thought a plan that provided for a public option was a good idea, as compared to 64% who supported a Sanders-style Medicare for All plan that would replace private health insurance. The popularity of the public option also carries over to independent voters: 70% support it, as compared to 39% for Medicare for All.”

How Trump Filled the GOP Leadership Vacuum

July 26, 2019 at 10:05 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

For your weekend listening: Chris Riback talks to Tim Alberta, author of American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.

Alberta’s book is excellent read and highly recommended.

Black Voters Are Key for Democrats In 2020

July 26, 2019 at 9:47 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Associated Press: “The upcoming presidential campaign offers a critical test for Democrats of whether they can ever again rely on the multiracial coalition that helped propel Obama to the White House twice. Young black voters… are critical to that effort, especially in states like Michigan, which Democrats lost by just over 10,000 votes in 2016, ceding a state that hadn’t backed a Republican since 1988. Reclaiming it, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, would put Democrats on a firmer path to the presidency.”

“Black voters are the base of the Democratic Party and its most consistent and loyal voting bloc. Black people voted in record numbers for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

“But nationally, the African American turnout rate dropped 7 percentage points in 2016 from its record high during Obama’s 2012 reelection, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Other groups did not see a comparable decrease — white turnout increased slightly while Latinos held steady.”

Nadler Heads to Court to Enforce Subpoenas

July 26, 2019 at 9:40 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said that he is going to court Friday and again next week in bids to enforce subpoenas seeking grand jury information associated with the special counsel investigation and testimony from former White House counsel Donald McGahn,” the Washington Post reports.

“Nadler said favorable court orders on those matters would ‘open the floodgates’ for enforcement of other subpoenas that he considers key to ongoing investigations of President Trump that have been stymied by White House’s refusal to cooperate.”

The Iowa Circus

July 26, 2019 at 9:05 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Matt Taibbi thinks Democrats are “gonna blow this again.”

“The front-runner — the front-runner! — is septuagenarian gaffe machine Joe Biden, who started running for president in the Eighties and never finished higher than ‘candidacy withdrawn,’ with a career delegate total matching John Blutarsky’s grade-point average, i.e., zero point zero. The summer’s ‘momentum’ challenger is California Sen. Kamala Harris, who spent all year sinking in polls but surged when she hit Biden with ‘I don’t think you’re a racist… but…’ on national TV.”

“A third contender is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a famed red-state punchline who already has 10,000 Pocahontas tweets aimed at her head should she make it to the general. Her ‘I have a plan for that’ argument for smarter government makes her a modern analog to Mike Dukakis — another Massachusetts charisma machine whose ill-fated presidential run earned him a portrait alongside the Hindenburg in a Naked Gun movie.”

“A fourth challenger, Bernie Sanders, is a self-proclaimed socialist born before the Pearl Harbor attack who’s somehow more hated by the national media than Trump. A fifth, Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has never earned more than 8,515 votes in any election. The claim to fame of a sixth, Beto O’Rourke, is that he lost a Senate bid to the world’s most-hated Republican. It goes on.”

Ginsburg Defends Kavanaugh and Gorsuch

July 26, 2019 at 8:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg came to the defense of her more conservative colleagues on the bench, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, CNN reports.

Said Ginsburg: “I can say that my two newest colleagues are very decent and very smart individuals.”

Economy Slows But Still Healthy

July 26, 2019 at 8:36 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Economic growth slowed last spring, but don’t panic — the decade-long expansion has lost some momentum, but there’s little reason to think it is about to stall out,” the New York Times reports.

“Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced in the economy, rose at a 2.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter… That represents a significant deceleration from the 3.1 percent growth rate in the first quarter. But the big swings in the quarterly data are almost certainly exaggerated.”

‘Moscow Mitch’

July 26, 2019 at 8:27 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

In a nearly seven-minute harangue, Joe Scarborough dismissed the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as “Moscow Mitch” for what he deemed as “un-American” lack of action on election security, Mediaite reports.

The Morning Joe host then suggested that McConnell may be benefiting from a Russian oligarch’s investment in his home state: “I understand that there’s an oligarch that I have read is going to be setting up a big aluminum plant in Moscow Mitch’s home state.”

He added: “I don’t know if that’s it. But how can Moscow Mitch so willingly turn a blind eye not only this year to what his Republican chairman of the Intel committee is saying, to what Robert Mueller is saying what the FBI director is saying what the DNI is saying, to what the CIA is saying, to what the United States military Intel community is saying. How can Moscow Mitch keep denying that Vladimir Putin continues to try to subvert American democracy?”

What We Learned from the Budget Deal

July 26, 2019 at 8:09 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jonathan Bernstein: “One is that it’s no coincidence that extended government shutdowns have happened in 1995-1996, 2013, and 2018-2019. They all began with Republican majorities in the House. So did the debt-limit brinkmanship of 2011. Although Democrats bargained hard for spending they wanted in this deal, they never really threatened to disrupt the government or the economy over it. Perhaps they’re more responsible than Republicans. But Democratic majorities have also always had substantive goals that they were out to achieve in these negotiations.”

“Republicans? Not so much. They’re after confrontation for its own sake.”

Trump Anxiety Syndrome

July 26, 2019 at 8:03 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Edward Luce: “A few days ago a psychologist friend told me something that was at once startling and unsurprising; she is seeing far more patients than before Donald Trump was elected — and they tend to be suffering from deeper anxiety. Some people call this the Trump Anxiety Syndrome (TAD), or Post Trump Stress Syndrome (PTSD). People of a more Trumpian flavour might dismiss it as Liberal Snowflake Disorder (LSD), or old-fashioned anecdotal exaggeration. I concede that there is no definitive data to back it up. Other than rising anti-anxiety Xanax prescriptions and surveys such as this from the American Psychiatric Association, it is hard to find incontrovertible statistics.”

“Blaming everything on Trump is facile. Yet omitting him from the equation would be just as mistaken. My own view is that Trump will leave America considerably less mentally healthy than how he found it. His election was the product of an increasingly anxious society. But we find ourselves collectively far more anxious as a result. Trump is a rocket-booster to our toxic stress. He is a cure worse than the disease.”

Warren to Announce One Million Donations

July 26, 2019 at 7:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign is set to announce on Friday that it has received more than 1 million donations this election, CNN reports.

“It will bolster the argument that the Warren team’s big bet on small-dollar and grassroots fundraising is working — the senator has vowed not to solicit money from wealthy donors, including in phone calls and fundraisers, during the primaries.”

Nadler and Pelosi Are on a Collision Course

July 26, 2019 at 7:44 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Daily Beast: “All committee chairs and House speakers have disagreements over jurisdiction, power, and strategic direction. But the relationship between Nadler and Pelosi is particularly sensitive now given the stakes of the issues they’re tackling. The special counsel’s office has closed, its report made public, and its director, Mueller, has testified on Capitol Hill about its contents. Now that the Russia investigation, as the American public understands it, has all but come to an end, both leaders are left answering questions about what comes next.”

“For Pelosi, the answer is simple: Stay the course. For Nadler, that course is becoming increasingly difficult to trek with members from his own committee, and constituents back home, calling not only for impeachment proceedings but for tougher posture toward a White House that seems hell-bent on making his oversight work impossible.”

Fears of Socialism Spark GOP Fundraising

July 26, 2019 at 7:32 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Wealthy Republican donors frightened of a socialist takeover in Washington have boosted support for House Republicans despite concerns about the party’s direction, providing a ray of hope for recapturing the majority in 2020,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“Democrats scoff at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for insisting Democrats in Congress are a bunch of socialists led by ‘the squad,’ … But the message is paying dividends, literally, with Republican donors writing five, six and seven figure checks to the party’s congressional campaign committees and affiliated super PACs.”

Conservative PAC Raised $10 Million – And Kept It

July 26, 2019 at 7:25 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“After recruiting thousands of donors for the American Conservative Union — the powerful organization behind the annual CPAC conference — a Republican political operative pushed the same contributors to give millions to a PAC that promised to go after then-President Barack Obama, but then steered much of their donations to himself and his partners,” ProPublica reports.

“The PAC, called the Conservative Majority Fund, has raised nearly $10 million since mid-2012 and continues to solicit funds to this day, primarily from thousands of steadfast contributors to conservative causes, many of them senior citizens. But it has made just $48,400 in political contributions to candidates and committees.”

Farmers Seek Cease-Fire In Trade Wars

July 26, 2019 at 7:22 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled details of a $16 billion aid package to help farmers hurt by President Trump’s trade war with China, as soybean growers from around the country converged on Washington to tell lawmakers that rural America is ready for a cease-fire,” the New York Times reports.

“Farmers have been among the biggest casualties of the trade fight, with Beijing slowing — and in some cases ending — purchases of American agricultural goods as retaliation for Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. They have also suffered from retaliatory tariffs that the European Union, Canada and Mexico placed on American farm goods after Mr. Trump slapped levies on foreign metals.”

Biden Bounces Back

July 26, 2019 at 7:14 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Fox News poll finds Joe Biden holding on to a steady lead from a pre-debate poll in the latest piece of good polling news for the former vice president after faltering in the first debate.

“The former vice president leads the field with 33%. He’s followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 15%, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 12% and Sen. Kamala Harris’ 10%.”

Pro-Impeachment Democrats Not Backing Down

July 26, 2019 at 7:09 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Democrats who favor impeachment proceedings against President Trump showed new signs of life Thursday even after former special counsel Robert Mueller’s uneven testimony this week failed to sway reluctant House leaders,” Politico reports.

“Five Democrats publicly endorsed an impeachment inquiry post-Mueller, joining more than 90 lawmakers who had already come out in favor.”

“Even though some had anticipated a more significant groundswell of new support after Mueller’s appearance, these lawmakers insist the impeachment effort isn’t dead.”

CNN: “House Democrats who are publicly and privately agitating to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump are growing worried that their time is running short — and that they are missing key opportunities to give them a clear opening to mount a formal probe.”