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‘What Happened’ for Conservatives
The Washington Post says How the Right Lost Its Mind by Charlie Sykes “is a sort of What Happened for conservatives.”
“The culprits are not James Comey, Vladimir Putin or a reality television opponent, but the return of ‘crackpotism’ on the right; the fecklessness of conservative media, political and religious figures; and the rise of a distorted worldview in which Trump’s overwhelming character flaws mattered little to a base that behaved as though civilization was in play in his election.”
“It is a sanitized image of conservatism, no doubt, but Sykes seems heartfelt in his lament. The insanity he purports to chronicle — on the book cover, the title is stitched across a red baseball cap — did not begin in 2016 or 2015, or even during this young millennium. Sykes reminisces about the mid-20th century, when his hero, William F. Buckley Jr., was casting out Birchers and Ayn Rand devotees from the conservative movement… But today’s conservatives have failed to do the same.”
Group Obtained Cellphone Numbers for Students
Roanoke Times: “Radford University and Virginia Tech turned over documents containing personal information, including names, addresses and cellphone numbers of about 40,000 current students, to progressive political group NextGen Virginia, which is working to boost voter turnout among college students in the Nov. 7 election.”
“NextGen Virginia requested the public information through Freedom of Information Act requests sent to every state-supported college and university in Virginia to obtain cellphone numbers of current students.”
Quote of the Day
“I just think that common sense has to prevail. But until that happens, until other people feel the same, we’re at a stalemate and that’s a shame.”
— Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), quoted by the New York Times, on Republicans refusing to consider any gun control legislation.
Tillerson Denies He Threatened to Resign
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson refuted a report that said he was on the verge of resigning from his Cabinet post over the summer, CBS News reports.
Said Tillerson: “I have never considered leaving this post.”
He did not address the claim in the report that he called President Trump a “moron.”
Update: Stephanie Ruhle stands by her report: “My source didn’t just say he called him a moron. He said he called him an fucking moron.”
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Republicans Back Away From Repeal Plan for Deduction
“Republican leaders are backing away from a proposal to fully repeal an expensive tax break used by more than 40 million tax filers to deduct state and local taxes amid pushback from fellow lawmakers whose residents rely on the popular provision,” the New York Times reports.
“The state and local tax deduction is estimated to cost $1.3 trillion over the next decade and its repeal is central to paying for a sweeping tax rewrite unveiled last week by Republican lawmakers and administration officials. But elimination of the provision has emerged as a flash point in the nascent debate over the plan, with Republicans in high-tax states worried about backlash from residents who could see their tax bills rise.”
Why Americans Want Their Guns
Peggy Noonan on Morning Joe: “There is a sense that society is collapsing — the culture is collapsing. We’re collapsing in crime. The world is collapsing. Crazy people with bad haircuts have nukes. Everything is going bad — terrorism, etc. They want to be fully armed on their hill, at home… They’re Americans, and they want to go down fighting.”
On Politicizing a Mass Shooting
Thomas Friedman: “If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim… If only he had shouted ‘Allahu akbar’ before he opened fire… No one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and ‘politicize’ Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies. No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11.”
Gun Control Is Now a Defining Issue
FiveThirtyEight: “Opposition to gun control laws is now a default position of the Republican Party, and guns as an issue has become one of the most polarized topics in modern American politics. More than that, it’s become a defining issue — which party people choose to identify with is inextricably intertwined with their relationship with guns and gun policy.”
“Just 22% of self-identified Democrats chose protecting gun ownership rights over limiting gun access, compared with the 76% of Republicans who did. This 54-point gap is about as wide as you’ll see on any issue.”
‘Just Ask Me’
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) talks about the GOP’s tax reform plan — and what the House Freedom Caucus will do — with Chris Riback on the latest episode of Political Wire Conversations.
Subscribe via iTunes or Google Play to get new episodes automatically downloaded to your phone.
Trump Says Puerto Rico’s Debt Could Be ‘Wiped Out’
“President Trump suggested that the government debt accumulated by bankrupt Puerto Rico would need to be wiped clean to help the island recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “We are going to work something out. We have to look at their whole debt structure. You know they owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street. We’re gonna have to wipe that out. That’s gonna have to be — you know, you can say goodbye to that. I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs but whoever it is, you can wave good-bye to that.”
Trump Children Were Nearly Indicted for Felony Fraud
ProPublica: “In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump’s two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., found themselves in a precarious legal position. For two years, prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had been building a criminal case against them for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development that was failing to sell. Despite the best efforts of the siblings’ defense team, the case had not gone away.”
“An indictment seemed like a real possibility. The evidence included emails from the Trumps making clear that they were aware they were using inflated figures about how well the condos were selling to lure buyers.”
Tillerson Nearly Resigned After Calling Trump a ‘Moron’
“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid mounting policy disputes and clashes with the White House,” NBC News reports.
“The tensions came to a head around the time President Trump delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led.”
“Just days earlier, Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a ‘moron,’ after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials.”
“Pence has since spoken to Tillerson about being respectful of the president in meetings and in public, urging that any disagreements be sorted out privately… Yet the disputes have not abated. This weekend, tensions spilled out into the open once again when the president seemed to publicly chide Tillerson on his handling of the crisis with North Korea.”
ACA Supporters Will Try to Sign People Up Themselves
“Supporters of the Affordable Care Act are ready to roll out a new campaign encouraging people to buy insurance — an effort they hope will make up for at least some of the cuts the Trump administration has made to enrollment outreach,” Axios reports.
“The ACA only works if people sign up, and the Trump administration has canceled or rolled back almost every effort to get people enrolled. Outside groups can’t fill that void entirely, but they’re hoping to at least keep enrollment stable.”
More GOP Senators Willing to Buck Trump
Politico: “There’s a growing faction inside the Senate Republican Conference, and it looks like bad news for Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump: The devil-may-care caucus.”
“Unbeholden to Republican orthodoxy and freed from the burdens of imminent reelection campaigns, more GOP senators are flexing their independence in the aftermath of the party’s failed effort to repeal Obamacare.”
Senate Panel Will Sound Alarm on Russian Meddling
“Senate Intelligence Committee leaders are expected on Wednesday to largely endorse the intelligence community’s findings that Russia sought to sway the 2016 U.S. election through a hacking and influence campaign as they sound the alarm that states preparing for the coming election season must be vigilant against similar threats,” the Washington Post reports.
Mattis Contradicts Trump on Iran Deal
“Days before President Trump has to make a critical decision on whether to hold up the Iran nuclear deal, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis openly split with him on abandoning the agreement, the second senior member of the president’s national security team to recently contradict him,” the New York Times reports.
Said Mattis: “Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with.”
“The comments were the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s instincts on national security — to threaten North Korea with destruction and tear up an Iran accord that most experts and allies say is working — are running headlong into opposition from his own National Security Council.”
