A reminder why Zika funding is being held up:
- Republicans would pull $500 million of the $1.1 billion bill from Obamacare. Republican attempts to defund Obamacare are what led to the government shutdown in 2013 and Democrats remain adamant in their protection of the president’s seminal law.
- The bill would also remove funding from Planned Parenthood. House Speaker John Boehner lost his post last year ramming through government funding that included money for Planned Parenthood over Republican objections, after Obama vetoed legislation stripping the funding. Without Boehner’s actions the government would have likely shut down again. But the issue remains contentious and a provision in the Zika bill strips a narrow sliver of funding from Planned Parenthood, a move that the group’s executive vice president Dawn Laguens called “crazy given that Zika is a sexually transmitted disease,” and the group often provides some of the only contraception available, especially in the Zika-prone South. “Many of the areas where Zika will be hitting the worst is places that don’t have Medicaid expansion and women have less less care,” Laguens said at the Thursday press conference.
- The House bill also would weaken decades-old environmental restrictions on pesticides in order to combat mosquitoes, a provision Democrats oppose.
- The House also added a rider that reverses a House vote unpopular with conservatives earlier this year that bans the flying of Confederate flags in military cemeteries, another provision Democrats abhor.
It took her that long to brief them?
NY Times:
‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias
She seemed like the model tenant. A 33-year-old nurse who was living at the Y.W.C.A. in Harlem, she had come to rent a one-bedroom at the still-unfinished Wilshire Apartments in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens. She filled out what the rental agent remembers as a “beautiful application.” She did not even want to look at the unit.
There was just one hitch: Maxine Brown was black.
Stanley Leibowitz, the rental agent, talked to his boss, Fred C. Trump.
“I asked him what to do and he says, ‘Take the application and put it in a drawer and leave it there,’” Mr. Leibowitz, now 88, recalled in an interview.
Charles Homans/NY Times:
“This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe,” Obama said on Aug. 2, needling the many Republicans who had recently denounced Trump’s words without rescinding their endorsements. “This is daily, and weekly, where they are distancing themselves from statements he’s making.” He’s right; at this point, to treat Trump’s statements as anything other than intentional is to uphold political-reporting convention at the expense of common sense. Trump has laid bare journalism’s contradictions — reporters’ desire to be critical of politicians without criticizing anything they stand for — to the point where we have no choice but to examine them. This may be the least expected outcome of 2016: The most flagrantly dishonest candidate in recent memory is forcing us to have the most honest political discussion we’ve had in years.
So you thought the AP mishandling of the Clinton Foundation was a one-off, eh?
TIME covers what really happened:
“Dwayne Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday, spelling Wade’s name incorrectly. He then deleted the original tweet and posted a new version, changing only the spelling Wade’s name.
And that’s on top of the screwed up coverage of the Clinton Foundation.
CNN:
Associated Press botches Hillary Clinton report and response
Meanwhile, other news organizations pilloried the AP's report.
The Washington Post Fact-Checker wrote that there were "many more nuanced and important details in the story that are being misrepresented — by the AP's own promotional tweet, and by Trump."
Vox's Matthew Yglesias was more direct: "The AP's big exposé on Hillary meeting with Clinton Foundation donors is a mess," his headline read.
Teen Vogue with an endorsement announcement that made me smile:
Now as you probably know, myriad brands have jumped on the athleisure bandwagon but none have done it quite like Nike. Enter: their 2016 Tech Fleece Collection, which combines their Nike Tech Fleece with Nike Tech Knit for the first time ever. Think lightweight and ultra-plush material, but warm and breathable at the same time. Oh and did we mention insanely stylish, too? But let's be real: that was a given.
So who's the face of Nike's iconic campaign, you ask? None other than gravity-defying, 100-watt-smiling, Olympian Gabby Douglas. (We'll let that sink in for just a sec). When we heard the news, we couldn't help but feel like proud parents of the tremendous girl that recently graced the cover of our August issue. Put simply: she couldn't be more perfect for this role, as she expertly straddles the line of fashion and athletics — look no further than her flawless dark lip on the floor for proof. Not only is she a fiercely inimitable athlete, but she's also a young woman that embodies everything Nike stands for: honor, perseverance, success, and fun.
Sage Lazzaro/Observer:
My to-do list usually includes some combination of meetings, interviews, deadlines, events, household chores, drinks with friends and, like all women, the next phase in my mission to eliminate men. That last task is apparently called “manocide,” and women’s pursuit of it? Well, that’s our “vagenda.”
If you’ve seen these words floating around the internet, it’s because a right wing gun shop used them to warn the world about the true intentions of “Hildabeast,” who most of us refer to as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
A picture of the sign in front of the Raymond, Maine shop made its way to Twitter and inspired women everywhere to start tweeting their own vagendas. In these satirical to-do lists, women casually list “manocide” in between tasks like meetings, laundry and fitness classes. Others swap out the term for phrases like “oppress men” and “crush a man’s soul.” Many next-level trolls are including other tasks everyone assumes feminists prioritize day to day, such as “eat kale” and “queer stuff.”
NY Daily News with an interesting article on immigration and Trump’s base:
But the reaction to the Trump pivot, especially the mild reaction from his base, suggests that lawmakers may have more leeway than anyone has imagined on immigration. Trump voters and other Republicans plainly want a wall. But maybe they want reform too — including reform that allows most unauthorized immigrants to stay in the U.S. legally.
This doesn’t mean immigration reform will be easy. Many Americans still oppose what they call “amnesty.” Whoever is President will have to work with Congress and honor its views. There are sure to be fierce negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. And no one should expect to get all they want from any deal that comes out of Congress; the country is still deeply divided on immigration.
But the Trump voters standing by their man this week are saying something, and it may be even bigger and more significant than the stunning flip-flop itself.
Which America do you want? This?
Or this?
Tom C. Korologos and Richard V. Allen/WaPo (conservatives):
Here is a four-point plan for moving forward:
First, every major indicator and poll shows Hillary Clinton winning the presidency. So be it.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance that Donald Trump will stop his bombast and preening. If he’s in trouble today, just bet that it’s going to be worse tomorrow.
It appears a political landslide will sweep the country. That’s not all bad. The larger the margin, the greater the chances a Clinton administration will overplay its hand, handing Republicans a clear opportunity to repair the damage in 2018 and 2020.
Eli Stokols/Politico:
Trump might already be out of time
With negative perceptions hardened, his late adjustments on policy and rhetoric could sway too few people to matter.
I mostly agree. The idea that the election only starts after Labor Day is almost as dumb as the idea that Donald Trump is qualified for the White House. Trump is already defined as a bigot and racist who hires bigots and racists. He cannot unsay what he has said and cannot undo what he has done with his hires.
The race will tighten and/but he will lose. At this point, I am beginning to wonder by how much.
NY Times with a timeline of what he said and when they walked:
At Least 110 Republican Leaders Won’t Vote for Donald Trump.
Here’s When They Reached Their Breaking Point.
EJ DIonne on why they matter:
If the race tightens, Republicans who know that Trump should not be president will have to be less grudging about lending their full support to Clinton. She tried to encourage them last week by declaring that Trump’s extremism represented neither “conservatism as we have known it” or “Republicanism as we have known it.” Her unspoken message: The stakes for the party’s dissenters are too high for halfway measures and bet hedging.
