E Jean Carroll/The Cut
Hideous Men
Donald Trump assaulted me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago. But he’s not alone on the list of awful men in my life.
Why haven’t I “come forward” before now?
Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun. Also, I am a coward.
Philip Klein/Washington Examiner:
This horrific rape accusation against Donald Trump deserves to be considered carefully and seriously
It is worth remembering, in light of Carroll's story, Trump's statements in the notorious "Access Hollywood" tape: "You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."
We should hear more from Carroll in the coming days and weeks, and the friends who confirm her account should come forward as well. If there are a lot of inconsistencies, this would be another case of major media malpractice. But if more reporting bolsters her account, this should be significant concern to Republicans, and all Americans.
Horrible comes in many flavors.
Politico:
Trump-approved Medicaid work rules didn't increase employment, study finds
The country’s first Medicaid work requirement in Arkansas forced thousands of low-income people off health coverage last year but didn't boost employment, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found the uninsured rate also increased for Arkansans between 30 and 49 years old — the age range of the first Medicaid beneficiaries subject to the new work requirements.
Jason Lyall /WaPo:
Trump’s Iran strategy is a Twitter thread. It’s hard to know where to start
[various answers from a group of political scientists]
This morning’s tweetstorm by President Trump about Iran is a wonderful example of the myth of the “paper tiger”: the dangerous, usually mistaken, belief that an opponent is both hellbent on aggression and easily cowed by military action or the threats of its use. Over the span of four tweets, Trump demonstrates remarkable intellectual flexibility, with Iran viewed as everything from a massive threat to the world to a boxed-in has-been (“bust,” in Trump’s words). The first tweet lambastes President Barack Obama for appeasing a looming Iranian threat. By the second tweet, Iran is now a badly weakened opponent. But dangerous enough to warrant a multisite retaliatory strike (tweet 3), unless civilians are harmed, in which case Iran isn’t that pressing after all. The fourth tweet is the real masterwork, though. Trump simultaneously argues that Iran is fading, that the United States holds all the cards and that there’s “no hurry,” except that Iran’s nuclear ambitions threaten the entire world, justifying a public pledge that Iran will “never” acquire these weapons. Given these inconsistencies in threat assessment, it is no wonder that the policy process appears dysfunctional and subject to capture by personalities and political considerations within the Oval Office.
Josh Kraushaar/National Journal:
The Dilemma for Moderate Democrats
The centrists at Third Way oppose Bernie Sanders and his socialist agenda. But the group is increasingly open to other liberal alternatives—including Elizabeth Warren.
There wasn’t palpable excitement in the room for former Vice President Joe Biden, even though he’s the current Democratic front-runner and his campaign closely reflects the pragmatic zeitgeist that defines Third Way. At a recent board meeting, none of the group’s leadership rated Biden as their first choice for the nomination, according to a source familiar with the informal conversation.
This is the conundrum facing Democratic centrists: Third Way leaders offered compelling evidence and new polling proving that moderates represent about half of primary voters and that a left-wing drift would be damaging for the party’s electoral fortunes. But it’s progressives who are most engaged in the process and dominate the elite conversation in party circles. The centrist Third Way forum was itself an example of the ideological divide within the party.
It’s not just about ideology, either; the debate extends to campaign strategy. While Third Way leaders warned about the limitations of a base-first approach in their presentations, many of the invited speakers touted the importance of mobilizing the party’s core supporters. “If you cannot mobilize the black community as the Democratic nominee, you will not be president,” said Jaime Harrison, a Senate candidate in South Carolina.
Data For Progress:
Topline Findings
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Democratic primary voters who have heard “a lot about” a candidate are much more likely to believe that candidate can beat Trump. Among all Democratic primary voters Vice President Joe Biden is currently viewed as most likely to beat Trump, but among voters who have heard “a lot about” the leading candidates, clear majorities believe those candidates can beat Trump.
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Voters do not believe that supporting policies like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal make candidates “unelectable.”
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We find that voters are more likely to support climate intervention when it is presented as government investment and regulation than when it is presented as a tax on carbon pollution, suggesting the Green New Deal framework has advantages over an exclusively carbon-tax framework.
Caitlin Flanagan/Atlantic (April, 2019):
They Had It Coming
The parents indicted in the college-admissions scandal were responding to a changing America, with rage at being robbed of what they believed was rightfully theirs.
I did not know—even after four years at the institution—that the school’s impressive matriculation list was not the simple by-product of excellent teaching, but was in fact the end result of parental campaigns undertaken with the same level of whimsy with which the Japanese Navy bombed Pearl Harbor.