Harris takes abortion fight to where it hurts Trump: Florida

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday September 03, 2024 · 6:00 AM PDT

2024/09/03 · 06:00

no image description available — Vice President Kamala Harris

The Harris-Walz team announced a multi-state “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom" bus tour Friday, which kicks off Tuesday “in Donald Trump’s backyard in Palm Beach, Florida,” according to a campaign statement. The bus tour will make at least 50 stops around the country throughout the fall, “touching blue communities and red ones.”

Florida is a smart place to launch it: Abortion is on the ballot and Donald Trump is confused about what to do about it.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Sunday September 01, 2024 · 12:00 PM PDT

2024/09/01 · 12:00

Sam Brown, the Republican challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in Nevada, first introduced himself to Silver State voters two years ago during his failed bid to unseat the state’s other Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez-Masto. He did it with an ad called “Duty.”

“I wasn’t born into power. I’m from small-town America,” he said in the 2022 ad.

What he didn’t say is that his extended family owns the Cincinnati Bengals, an NFL team worth $4 billion, and that his relatives have been supporting his political ambitions for a while now.

To hear Brown talk, he comes from the most humble of backgrounds. His was a “sort of working-class family,” he told radio host Ken Wall back in 2021 (at about the 22-minute mark). That same year, he told a local news host that he comes from “salt of the earth people,” not from a “dynasty” (at 23:48).

Speaking of dynasties, Brown’s great-grandfather, Paul Brown, founded the Bengals and his great-uncle, Michael Brown, is the current owner of the NFL team. So maybe a little bit of dynasty?

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Friday August 30, 2024 · 2:45 PM PDT

2024/08/30 · 14:45

Here’s a great clip to share with friends and family if you want to talk about Donald Trump’s tax plans.

In a short video posted Friday, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt—a two-time Emmy winner who has been working since childhood and is in the top 1% of earners—explains why he doesn't want the $70,000 tax break Trump wants to give wealthy people like him.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Friday August 30, 2024 · 11:00 AM PDT

2024/08/30 · 11:00

Donald Trump desperately wants to close the ever-widening gender gap among voters in this upcoming election, and has apparently decided the way to do it is to steal Democrats’ plans. At a Michigan rally on Thursday, Trump promised that if he wins in November, “your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment.”

“We want to produce babies in this country,” Trump said, which might not be as compelling a message to women as he thinks.

But now that Trump has come around on the issue, it’s a perfect opportunity for Democrats to bring back proposed legislation that would do just what he promised—and see if this time around Republicans will take them up on it.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday August 29, 2024 · 4:00 PM PDT

2024/08/29 · 16:00

Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are sitting for their first formal interview since she became the Democratic nominee during a CNN prime-time special airing Thursday at 9 PM ET. Dana Bash will conduct the sit-down, which the network is billing as “the next test in her presidential bid.”

CNN says the interview “has taken on elevated significance because of the compressed race Harris is running after she became her party’s candidate and because of the way it mushroomed into an issue between the feuding campaigns.”

That might give you some sense of the attitude Bash and the network are bringing to the interview: Harris has something to prove to them and has to answer to GOP nominee Donald Trump’s criticism of her nascent campaign’s chosen media strategy. Bash could take a more balanced approach, of course. But the media hasn’t acquitted itself too well when it comes to Harris’ candidacy.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday August 29, 2024 · 3:00 PM PDT

2024/08/29 · 15:00

A well-known anti-abortion extremist appears to be providing political cover for Donald Trump, playing up a supposed break from the former president due to his purported softening on the issue.

Lila Rose, founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, gave a long interview to Politico Magazine on Thursday, the gist of which Politico says is her assertion that “it is not the job of the pro-life movement to vote for President Trump.” Politico liked that line so much they made it the headline, naively taking her at her word. Rose cut her activist teeth working with James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas in their doctored “sting” videos against Planned Parenthood.

But a close reading of the interview clues us into the game she’s playing.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday August 29, 2024 · 11:00 AM PDT

2024/08/29 · 11:00

Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t see a big bounce in polling after the Democratic National Convention, but instead has continued her presidential campaign’s momentum with steady, sustained gains that have put more states in play. A huge surge in Democratic enthusiasm for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is helping to drive that momentum.

Harris surged ahead of Republican nominee Donald Trump in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll of likely voters released Thursday, gaining a 5-percentage-point lead nationally (48% to 43%). That flips the script from late June, when Trump led President Joe Biden by 4 points. Her biggest gains come from the coalition of voters the campaign needs in order to win.

"With the 'Brat Summer' of Kamala Harris emojis winding down, young people, persons of color, and low-income households have swung dramatically toward the vice president," David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told USA Today. "These same demographics were emphasized and woven together by numerous speakers at the convention."

When he says “dramatically,” that’s no exaggeration. In June, Trump led Biden by 3 points among low-income voters. Harris now has a 23-point lead over Trump among that demographic. And that’s not all.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday August 29, 2024 · 9:00 AM PDT

2024/08/29 · 09:00

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday finds that Donald Trump’s lead over Kamala Harris on the economy has nearly vanished, which could make her recently announced economic plan—touted across three new ads—all the more potent.

The economy is always at or near the top of voters’ list of concerns, and this new poll is no different, finding that 26% of registered voters put the economy as their top issue, compared with 22% who said political extremism and threats to democracy, and 13% who chose immigration. On the economy, Harris trails Trump by just 3 percentage points, 40% to 43%, which is within margin of error. In July, the same poll gave Trump an 11-point lead on the issue.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday August 28, 2024 · 3:00 PM PDT

2024/08/28 · 15:00

House Republicans released their bogus impeachment report on President Joe Biden on Aug. 19, hoping to distract from the display of joy and unity on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. GOP leaders—and plenty of Republicans in vulnerable House seats—wanted that to be the end of it, but the extremists in the conference don’t agree and could try to force a vote. That’s got Democrats popping their popcorn, ready for the show.

When the report was released, House Speaker Mike Johnson simply stated that he hoped everyone would read it and thanked the committees for their work. He didn't say anything about what would happen next, suggesting he just wants the partisan and sloppy attempt to nail the Biden “crime family” to go away. That way, Republicans won’t have to take an embarrassing vote to impeach Biden that would surely fail.

But Johnson immediately heard back from the peanut gallery. The House hard-liners are getting ready to raise hell, and the rest of the GOP is starting to freak out over the possibility that one of the troublemakers is going to try to force the vote when the House reconvenes in September.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday August 28, 2024 · 1:30 PM PDT

2024/08/28 · 13:30

The House’s two investigations into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump held competing events on Monday.

Why are there two investigations, and why are they competing? you might ask. Well, the first is the official bipartisan task force, which the House unanimously voted to create in late July. House Speaker Mike Johnson did the right thing then, working with Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to appoint members—including mostly serious Republicans—to investigate what happened on July 13.

On Monday, this panel met with law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania, and toured the rally grounds where the attempted assassination took place. At the same time, a few hundred miles away, some of the House GOP’s least serious members held a forum in Washington, D.C., and called it “hearing,” the first of their so-called “parallel investigation.”

“While this is the first hearing ... it won’t be the last,” far-right Rep. Cory Mills said during the event. “This is a message to all of Congress. … There are members [and] conservatives who will not be silenced.”

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday August 27, 2024 · 9:00 AM PDT

2024/08/27 · 09:00

Supporters of the League of Latin American Citizens denounced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's so-called election integrity investigations after raids targeting Latino candidates and volunteers.

Under the guise of “voter fraud,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has ramped up his harassment of Democratic Latino candidates, leaders, and even volunteers. His “election integrity unit” carried out a series of raids this week on the homes of people involved with Cecilia Castellano’s campaign for a state House seat.

Paxton’s team alleged in warrants for the raid “that a longtime Frio County political operator had illegally harvested votes for multiple local races in recent years” including Castellano’s 2024 primary, according to the Texas Tribune.

“Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office claims in a sworn affidavit that the aide, Manuel Medina, a former chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party and chief of staff to state Rep. Liz Campos, D-San Antonio, was recorded discussing a scheme to collect votes for Castellano with the Frio County operator,” the Tribune reports.

Paxton’s thugs raided the home of Lidia Martinez, an 87-year-old retired educator, in San Antonio last week. She is a lifelong volunteer with the civil rights group League of United Latin American Citizens, known as LULAC. Martinez told The New York Times that a little before 6 AM last Tuesday, nine officers—some of whom were armed—knocked on her door and forced their way into her home.

“I got scared,” she told the Times. “They told me, ‘We have a warrant to search your house.’ I said, ‘Why?’ I felt harassed.”

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Monday August 26, 2024 · 3:00 PM PDT

2024/08/26 · 15:00

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 31: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on July 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. Graham is introducing legislation to hold Iran accountable for Hezbollah's strike on the Israeli controlled Golan Heights. Israel launched a deadly strike on a densely populated Beirut suburb in retaliation for the strike over the weekend. Lebanese officials said at least three civilians were killed and 74 others wounded. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images) — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had a rough Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” where he tried to spin doom and gloom out of last week’s joyous Democratic National Convention.

After host Jake Tapper noted the DNC’s successes—“Millions of viewers tuned in, a bit more than tuned into the Republican Convention. It was disciplined. It was well-produced. It conveyed patriotism and unity”—he asked Graham, “Is what [Donald Trump] saw this week making him and his campaign nervous at all?”

“If you're a Republican, you saw a hate-fest. You saw a hate-fest full of insults,” Graham said, later adding, “This whole joy lovefest doesn't exist in the real world.”

And it’s understandable. Graham spends a lot of time with Trump, and that can’t be any fun at all.

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Harris takes abortion fight to where it hurts Trump: Florida

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Anti-abortion leader pretends Trump isn’t their guy

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Far-right House members open useless, parallel probe into Trump shooting

Here's how Texas AG is going all in on Latino voter suppression

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