One of my favorite documentaries is Do You Believe in Miracles about the 1980 men’s hockey team. That was a battle America was sure to lose. The team from the USSR had every advantage going into their famous showdown with the American team. But a team of scrappy college kids and their hard working coach defeated them.
The documentary explains how one of the things coach Brooks had to fight was the American players being overly intimidated by the USSR players. He worried that they were looking at them as unbeatable and almost not human. You can’t beat someone when you see them as unbeatable.
So Brooks started making fun of the USSR players to his players. He made fun of how they looked and talked. He brought them down a notch in his players’ minds. He reminded them that the USSR team could be beaten. Again and again, he reminded them “someone is going to beat those guys.”
And against all odds the USA team won. They beat a team that had every advantage. They beat a team that basically cheated by having professional players in everything but name. They beat those guys.
We can and will beat Trump too. On weeks like this, when it becomes clear that the justice department is firmly under trump’s control, it can be easy to descend into despair. It can be easy to think that trump and the pathetic spineless sycophants that surround him are actually stronger than they are. It can be easy to think they are unbeatable.
But they are not unbeatable. We are strong. We hold the best of America in our hearts. We are the majority. We will NOT let our 200+ year old democracy fall to this pathetic, weak, lying, moronic, failed reality TV show host. Don’t ever forget what a pathetic sad joke he is. Don’t ever forget that he can be beaten.
Don’t elevate these clowns to anything higher than they are. They are too afraid for fair fights. They are too unintelligent to run on real plans. All they have are lies and cheating.
They are ready to lose. They *will* lose in 2020. And we will make it so.
Need more convincing? Well pour yourself a second beverage and settle in because I have A LOT of evidence, and all of it from just this week:
The Failed Reality TV Show Host CAN Be Beaten
Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Congress is actually a sign of his weakness
Suing a committee chairman and his own accounting firm. Telling people who don’t work for him anymore that they can’t testify to Congress. Having his personal lawyer tell the Treasury Department not to release Trump’s tax returns to Congress. These are all actions President Trump has taken against Congress in the past few days, evidence that he’s going full-court to stop lawmakers from investigating him.
It’s an unprecedentedly brazen move for a president. But Joshua Huder, a fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, says it’s actually a sign of Trump’s weakness.
Past presidents have negotiated behind the scenes with Congress when they don’t want to turn over information. They’ve relied on influential allies on Capitol Hill to help make their case. Trump is forced to take the most extreme measures because he doesn’t have enough soft power to do that, Huder argues. As a result, Trump is forcing himself into high-profile legal and political battles he has a real risk of losing
"The president lacks a lot of informal modes of influence,” Huder said, “and he can't convince the allies he does have."
and this isn’t the only place we see trump’s weaknesses
Trump spent nearly all of his political capital at the beginning of this year trying to get Congress to fund a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He failed when enough Republicans joined with Democrats to pass a spending bill that didn’t include the amount of money he wanted. The longest shutdown in federal government history failed to win over lawmakers to Trump’s side — or any new money for his wall. (And let’s not forget that presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigned on Mexico paying for the wall, another place where his negotiations seem to have fallen through.)
To make good on his central campaign promise, Trump declared a national emergency and took money from elsewhere to do it. The consequence? A lengthy, time-consuming legal battle that could go all the way to the Supreme Court.
But Trump would probably prefer not to have to go to such extremes with Congress right now. Instead of messaging ahead of the 2020 election, he’s forcing himself into high-profile legal battles that will keep these politically dangerous stories in the news. All because, Huder argues, he had no other choice.
Trump on collision course with McConnell on spending
President Trump is on a collision course with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over whether to work with Democrats on a spending bill.
trump has given the GOP leader some time to work with Democrats but doesn’t want the talks to drag on all year and lead to an agreement that would increase spending — and the budget deficit.
McConnell, a longtime member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said he wants to try to pass regular spending bills before defaulting to a continuing resolution (CR).
Trump faces string of setbacks to his efforts to intervene in the U.S. economy
Mounting GOP opposition torpedoed conservative commentator Stephen Moore’s candidacy as a Federal Reserve Board governor Thursday, the latest in a string of setbacks that reveal hardening limitations on President Trump’s attempts to intervene in the economy.
Despite his efforts, Trump has failed to arrest rising gasoline prices and demonstrated little influence over Senate Republicans and Fed officials when he has demanded leaders heed his directives for managing the global economy.
TRUMP STILL COURTING 2020 SUICIDE WITH QUIXOTIC PUSH TO KILL OBAMACARE
The brainiacs in the West Wing continue to impress.
trump isn’t making things easy for himself in 2020. Despite the strong economy, the protection and support of G.O.P. sycophants, and a potential identity crisis among Democrats, the halfwit president continues to put obstacles in his own path to re-election, including, most recently, by escalating his war on the Affordable Care Act. In a filing on Wednesday, the Trump administration called for the entirety of Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation to be struck down, formalizing the more aggressive posture on the A.C.A. Attorney General Bill Barr signaled last March in throwing the D.O.J.’s weight behind a Texas district judge who ruled that the law should be invalidated.
Still, it’s not clear that Trump has a real shot of nuking the law. Obamacare has withstood close to a decade of legal and political attacks from the right and has remained not only relatively stable, but popular with the American people. That makes the president’s continued assault particularly perplexing. Democrats seized on his failed attempts to repeal and replace the law to win back the House in 2018, and would be only too happy to run on healthcare again in 2020. Republicans, battered after their House and Senate majorities failed to make good on promises to deliver health care solution, seem to have little appetite for another fight. Trump has no plan to replace the A.C.A., should it be struck down. So why is he wading back into such politically treacherous waters?
The easy answer is that he’s an imbecile who’d rather play exclusively to his base, even as Democrats hammer him over his latest push to strip Americans’ healthcare and the A.C.A.’s protections for those with preexisting conditions.
Poll: majority oppose Trump administration restrictions on abortion funding
Seven in 10 people are concerned the Trump administration’s new family planning rules will limit women’s access to care, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The poll found that 58 percent of respondents, including 48 percent of Republicans, oppose barring federal funding from clinics that provide abortions or referrals for abortions.
In addition, the poll found 69 percent of respondents said they would like their state to continue making payments to Planned Parenthood, amid attempts by conservatives in a number of states to defund the clinics.
The idea that Donald Trump will win easily in 2020 is ridiculous
That's the provocative first line of a Washington Post piece by conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt in which he makes the case -- as you might have already surmised -- that President Donald Trump will be easily reelected.
There's truth in what Hewitt argues here, which can be boiled down to: It's the economy, stupid.
But Hewitt's piece also takes a number of liberties to draw his conclusions, ignoring some recent electoral history as well as the unqiueness of the position Trump currently occupies in our politics. I've listed some of the biggies below.
1. We don't really do blowout presidential elections these days
2. Trump's approval ratings remain dismal
3. Trump's standing in key states is weak
None of that is to say that Trump can't or won't win next November. I've told anyone who asks that assuming -- simply because of his weak approval numbers or his, um, unpresidential manner -- that Trump is a goner in 2020 is a major mistake. He proved in 2016 that he had an appeal that went beyond traditional metrics. And I'm assuming that he will keep that appeal in some circles come 2020.
But Hewitt's claim that Trump will walk to reelection is equally farcical. Even without all of the data about how divided we are as a country -- which predates Trump -- the President's numbers, especially in key swing states combined with the narrowness of his 2016 victory suggest that the 2020 election is likely to be close.
2020 polls lay out an ominous pattern for Trump
t's way too early to know who is going to win the 2020 presidential race. We don't know who the Democratic nominee will be, and we don't know what President Donald Trump's approval rating will be.
Still, we can look for patterns in the early polling to see what is driving voter preferences. Specifically, are the early patterns for this election looking like 2016 when Trump was able to win a substantial portion of voters who didn't like him? Or is it more like 2018, when Trump's approval rating was very predictive of vote choice for House races?
Our CNN poll suggests that, at least against Joe Biden, the Democrats' best known and most likely nominee, it looks like 2018. That is, feelings about Trump are strongly correlated with their voting preferences.
And that spells potential disaster for Trump.
Voter selection in the Biden/Trump matchup is nearly perfectly predicted by approval of Trump. Among those who approve of Trump, Trump leads 92% to 5%. Among those who disapprove of Trump, Biden is ahead 95% to 3%.
That's because Trump's approval rating stands at only 44%, compared to a disapproval rating of 53% among voters. To win in 2020, Trump can't have the election be a referendum on him if his approval rating is this low. He needs to win a substantial share of those who disapprove of him. So far, that's not happening.
Preet Bharara: There’s a ‘Reasonable Likelihood’ Trump Will Get Indicted After He Leaves Office
My former office clearly endorses and believes the fact—as Michael Cohen admitted in open court—that he engaged in the conduct he pleaded guilty to at the direction of Individual 1. Individual 1 is the president. Depending on what the other circumstances are, I believe there’s a reasonable likelihood that they would follow through on that.
Barr’s testimony came the day after a really bad day for Donald Trump, and a great day for accountability, democracy and our Constitution.
Within a few hours Tuesday:
—Trump, as a private citizen, sued two banks his family uses to keep his financial records secret, long after a river of financial details had began flowing from those banks to government investigators.
—A federal appeals court gave the green light to a lawsuit by congressional Democrats who assert that Trump is violating our Constitution’s emoluments clauses. Presidents may not receive money from foreign powers or state governments without explicit congressional approval, which Trump lacks.
—We saw that Barr had lied to Congress on April 10, putting him at risk of prosecution for a felony. Barr testified he had “no idea” what Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor, thought about how Barr interpreted the Mueller report even though Mueller had laid out exactly what Mueller thought in a letter to Barr as well as a telephone call.
Add it up, and the wall of lying and denying Trump built to hide his finances is melting faster than the Greenland ice sheet.
Democrats Have What It Takes
Booker, House Dems introduce most ambitious bill yet to curb immigration detention
As the Trump administration tries to keep more asylum seekers in detention, progressives want to throw the detention machine in reverse.
Amy Klobuchar has a plan to reverse the war on drugs — and doesn’t need Congress to do it
Before she joined the US Senate, Amy Klobuchar spent much of her career locking people up as the prosecutor for Hennepin County, Minnesota. But if she’s elected president, the Democrat has vowed to enact reforms within a month that could free thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people from federal prisons — and she won’t even need Congress to do it.
Klobuchar’s plan would tap into one of the president’s few nearly absolute powers: the ability to grant pardons and commutations to any federal prison inmate.
House panel allots $50M to study gun violence
House Democratic appropriators are allocating $50 million to study gun violence, aiming to accelerate research that had been effectively off-limits at the CDC for more than two decades.
Schiff Hires Ex-Chief of FBI Financial Crimes Section as House Intel Probes Trump’s Finances
Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has hired Patrick Fallon, former chief of the FBI’s Financial Crimes Section, according to two sources familiar with the move.
It’s a significant hire that will bring expertise to the committee’s efforts to scrutinize President Donald Trump’s financial dealings. A committee source told The Daily Beast that Fallon started this week.
Medicare-for-all advocates get their first hearing on Capitol Hill
In the opening moments of Congress’s first-ever hearing on Medicare-for-all, House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) hit on a theme that already has begun to dominate the 2020 Democratic primary season: “Health care is a right for all,” he said, “not a privilege for the lucky few.”
That mantra, which he and others invoked on Tuesday, is political ammunition for liberals’ crusade to convert the U.S. health-care system into a single-payer model. The language casts a redesign, intended to guarantee all Americans access to care by enlarging the government’s role, as a moral imperative.
The 2019 governor's race that has Trump's team sweating
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is a presidential phone-buddy and White House regular who’s become one of President Donald Trump’s loudest surrogates.
He’s also one of the most unpopular governors in the country, facing a treacherous reelection in November. And the White House, fearing that an embarrassing loss in a deep-red state would stoke doubts about the president’s own ability to win another term, is preparing to go all-in to save him.
Republicans could have a Green New Deal problem
Polling suggests that the GOP risks turning off younger voters en masse by portraying the climate change plan as a socialist fantasy.
The GOP is seizing on the "Green New Deal" to demonize vulnerable Democrats in 2020 — but some Republicans warn it could do long-term damage to the party.
Though Republicans have ignored climate change in past elections, it’s now a key part of their 2020 strategy, especially in House races. They’re hoping to define the Green New Deal as an expensive socialist gambit dreamed up by liberal superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that will ban cows and planes. Though mostly inaccurate, it's a portrayal they believe will scare independent voters in key districts.
But the move could come at a cost: The near- and long-term loss of millennials and Generation Z voters, a growing slice of the electorate that wants federal climate change action to a greater degree than their elders. A recent Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics survey found 74 percent of likely general election voters under 30 disapprove of President Donald Trump’s climate change performance and 50 percent call climate change “a crisis” that “demands urgent action.” Another 25 percent called it “a problem.”
The data has Republican pollsters and current and former lawmakers warning that relentless mocking of the Green New Deal — but more critically, President Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate change as a hoax — could jeopardize the GOP’s ability to capture and cement a congressional majority.
When we unite, nothing can beat us
Only One Thing Can Stop White Supremacy: Solidarity Between Muslims And Jews by by Keith Ellison and Carin Mrotz.
Jews and Muslims are people of text. Our foundational texts are rooted in our founders’ flight from oppression through a narrow place of danger. Centuries later, we hold our texts dear and study them endlessly to remind ourselves how to live ethically and in wholeness with our god and each other through the dangers we face today.
We — Jews and Muslims — are in Mitzrayim, a narrow space this time constructed by white nationalists who seek to destroy their common enemy: us. The anti-Semitism and Islamophobia they attack us with come out of the same place: the ancient conspiracy theory that our mission is to undermine white, Christian society.
It is a narrow space, but we are not trapped in it. There is a way through it. In this moment when forces are working day and night to turn us against each other, we propose modeling unity around shared values. In Minnesota, we are committed to radical solidarity.
In The Wake Of Recent Attacks, Boston’s Jewish And Muslim Communities Connect In Solidarity
After Saturday's deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway, Calif., Hoda Eltomi, a member of the Cambridge mosque, has made a point to reach out to her Jewish neighbors.
"I read about the shooting that happened at the synagogue, and I said to myself, 'I need to be better about reaching out to my Jewish friends and neighbors and my Christian friends and neighbors and telling them — our mosques are open,'" she said. "If you don’t have a place to pray, you can pray here."
Bari Brodsky, a member of Temple Beth Shalom and an interfaith religious group, came to the Islamic Society to show support.
“As a Jew watching what’s going on in the world, this is terrifying,” Brodsky said. “I see how, in this country, Muslim-Americans are treated. This was how Jews were treated. This is very personal to me and my family.”
Open Mosque day, according to Brodsky, is an opportunity to connect, in the form of a five minute walk around the block.
That is it for today. Have a GREAT weekend. Keep fighting. Keep making your calls. Keep donating. Keep faith. Be kind to yourself and to one another.
I am so proud and so lucky to be in this with all of you ❤️ ✊ ❤️