“At least 210 women faced criminal charges related to pregnancy, abortion, pregnancy loss, or birth in the year after the Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion,” Rolling Stone reports.
“In most of the cases — 121 of the 210 — the information later used against the women was obtained or disclosed in a medical setting, researchers found.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson is preparing to steer around a bloc of conservative opposition to a bipartisan short-term agreement to fund the government by relying — yet again — on Democrats to provide the bulk of votes to pass the legislation,” the New York Times reports.
“Late on Monday night, Republican leaders abruptly abandoned an effort to bring the funding legislation to the House floor using routine procedural measures, in an acknowledgment of the growing opposition to the measure from hard-right lawmakers.”
“The leader of a nonprofit representing the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio, filed criminal charges Tuesday against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, over the chaos and threats experienced by the city since Trump first spread false claims about legal immigrants there during a presidential debate,” the AP reports.
Rick Wilson: “I may have a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of American politics, but with 7000+ elected officials in the country, no one knows them all by name. Until a few days ago, I had never heard of state Senator Mike McDonnell of Nebraska.”
“There aren’t many elected Republican heroes left still inside the party. Yesterday, we saw one in action when McDonnell stood in front of the MAGA freight train of corrupt politics and their ongoing attempt to steal the 2024 election and said, ‘Stop.'”
Adam Serwer: “The theory is that by supercharging the salience of race—a reliable winner with huge swaths of the electorate—they can compensate for the unpopularity of the Trump campaign’s actual policy agenda: its plans to ban abortion, repeal protections for preexisting conditions in the Affordable Care Act, deregulate Big Business, and cut taxes on the wealthy while raising them on everyone else.”
“The campaign wants people—white people in particular—thinking about race, and hopes that these kinds of appeals will activate the necessary number of voters in the key swing states where the electorate is more conservative than the country as a whole. As Molly Ball reported in 2017, based on polling from the former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, another former Trump stalwart, Steve Bannon, developed a plan to galvanize white voters with race-baiting on immigration.”
“The belief that demagoguery on immigration is politically potent is why conservative media erupt with saturation coverage of the perennial migrant caravans every election season. The right sees as its most effective message the argument that immigrants, particularly nonwhite immigrants, are going to come to America and take or be given that which belongs to you.”
“Kamala Harris is set to ramp up her economic message this week, with a speech reframing her policy vision and a lengthy new document describing her approach in more detail,” the New York Times reports.
“Her focus on economic issues comes at a pivotal moment, as many voters remain skeptical of her ability to improve the economy, which has been a top issue in the presidential campaign.”
“Rudy Giuliani has been told he must pay a bill of about $300,000 for a forensic accounting firm’s work to trace his money in his now-aborted bankruptcy proceeding,” CNN reports.
Two women told Wired that when they were 18-year-old college freshmen, former Trump aide John McEntee “behaved in ways they considered inappropriate in online conversations.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Donald Trump narrowly ahead of Kamala Harris among likely voters, 48% to 47%.
Said pollster Tim Malloy: “On the backstretch of the race to Election Day, all eyes are on which candidate can best stoke their supporter’s enthusiasm all the way to the finish line. A slight shift suggests the Harris crowd is not roaring as loudly as it was last month.”
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ vow to gut the Senate’s filibuster rule to pass a bill codifying abortion rights has cost her an endorsement from a leading Senate moderate: Joe Manchin,” CNN reports.
Said Manchin: “Shame on her. She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”
Dan Pfeiffer: “Riding the pollercoaster is an exercise in insanity. A few things to keep in mind (I like to reiterate these reminders every month or so): first, polling is an inexact science. There is a margin for error. A poll that shows Harris up two and one that shows her down two are essentially the same.”
“Second — and I can’t emphasize this enough — polling is not supposed to predict the future. It tells us our present. Let’s say the NYT poll is right. Harris is down two in North Carolina now, but has more than a month to make up that gap. Finally, it is totally okay to ignore all of the polls, but if you must look, focus on the averages. They smooth out the statistical variance inherent in individual polls.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by seven points in the presidential race, 47% to 40%.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said Tuesday that he has “no plans to call a special session” to change the way the state allocates electoral votes to a winner-take-all system, ending an effort led by Donald Trump, CNN reports.
For members: A Really Big Deal in Nebraska
“Hezbollah urged Iran in recent days to launch an attack against Israel as fighting between the Lebanese militant group and the Israeli military dramatically escalated, but Iran has so far refrained,” Axios reports.
“President Joe Biden addressed the United Nations for the final time Tuesday, defending his record and urging an expansion of alliances and democracy to steady a world buffeted by war — even as conflicts in the Middle East and Europe appeared poised to escalate in the concluding months of his term,” Politico reports.
Said Biden: “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those pulling us apart.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is promising that the House will not approve a single, massive bill to fund the entire government in December — a scenario feared by conservatives — despite a stopgap that’s expected to clear the House this week expiring on Dec. 20,” The Hill reports.
Said Johnson: “There won’t be a Christmas omnibus.”
Punchbowl News: “If Republicans keep the majority, he’s going to want to avoid an end-of-year omnibus at all costs. That would come at the same time he’s trying to lock down the votes to remain speaker. That will be tough enough for Johnson anyway.”
Trump’s Truth is a searchable database of Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, including those that have been deleted.
Charlie Warzel: “Even for Trump, this feed manages to shock. In the span of just a few days, you can witness the former president sharing flagrantly racist memes about Middle Easterners invading America, falsely edited videos showing Harris urging migrants to cross the border, an all-caps screed about how much better off women would be under his presidency, a diatribe about Oprah’s recent interview with Harris. It’s a lot to take in at once.”
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.