What shouldn’t you do? Turn on one another. Start blaming Democrats on the left, right, or center for this. It may feel good for a moment, but it hurts us in the long (and near) term. Republicans did this. Hard stop.
Need some good news to keep you energized for the fight?
Here it is:
With Hard Work, We Can Win in November
It is not going to be easy, but we CAN win in November. We CAN keep the House and Senate and even improve our margins.
Biden comes out fighting in pre-election reboot
In recent days, Biden has switched on a rhetorical blowtorch and blasted Republicans as followers of ex-President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” demagoguery. And after a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion suggested the greatest liberal defeat of the modern era is looming – the abolition of the constitutional right to an abortion – Biden questioned which basic rights the right-wing high court majority fashioned by Trump will strip next.
In sharpening his midterm message and his assault on Trumpism, the President is doing exactly what party leaders must going into elections – offer their candidates a rationale for power and a counter to their opponents’ attacks.
Nearly all Democratic frontliners in the House outraised their opponents in the most recent quarter.
We've run the numbers and all but two of the 35 House Democratic frontline members outraised their Republican opponents during the most recent quarter. That money may not be enough in a hostile political environment but certainly can't hurt.
Democrats win huge upset in Michigan
@caglanville just FLIPPED Michigan’s HD-74, defeating a GOP extremist who made rape jokes, defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, & advocated for decertifying the 2020 election. Carol will be a great advocate for education, jobs, & the environment in the legislature!
The previous Republican incumbent, now-Sen. Mark Huizenga, won his three races with over 60% of the vote. Donald Trump got 57% in the district in 2020. The district includes the cities of Cedar Springs, Grandville, Rockford, and Walker (where Glanville is a city commissioner), plus six townships.
Glanville’s win, combined with Jeff Pepper’s special election win in the solidly blue 15th district, gives the Democrats 53 House seats — the most since 2010.
and…
A decision to overturn Roe v. Wade might upend the midterms
Supporters of abortion rights and their Democratic allies predicted that the thunderclap heard Monday night with Politico’s publication of a leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. would reverberate through to the fall campaign and possibly beyond.
That, they said, could make an election that so far has largely appeared to be a referendum on President Biden and his party into a choice between Democratic and Republican governance that could narrow an enthusiasm gap that currently favors the Republicans and ultimately hold down expected GOP gains.
“The right wants to take this to a place — and I think this will be a problem for the right — to a very dark place that I don’t think Americans are prepared for,” said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg. “Gender politics has been relatively muted for some time. This brings it to the fore and it will be dramatically different than what we’ve seen for a long time.”
Potential political drawbacks for Republicans of overturning Roe
Republicans have spent decades railing against Roe while running on antiabortion platforms and promising to appoint judges who would overturn the landmark 1973 decision. The hesitancy by top GOP officials Tuesday to herald the news that what they have long sought they could soon obtain suggested a concern, or at least some initial uncertainty, about whether Roe’s demise could have some political drawbacks for the party.
For Republicans, an overturn of Roe v. Wade could add to the party’s challenges in courting suburban women, in particular.
Women are a little more likely than men to favor keeping abortion legal; 62 percent of women say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center, while 56 percent of men say the same.
Abortion Is the ‘Five-Alarm Fire’ That Could Save Some Democrats
When Tim Ryan first ran for Congress two decades ago, he campaigned as an anti-abortion Democrat.
Now, as he runs for Senate in an increasingly red Ohio, a nationwide reckoning over abortion rights is reshaping the political landscape in this year’s elections—and could propel Ryan’s underdog campaign.
Ryan himself had an “evolution” on abortion, announcing in 2015 that he had changed his mind and embraced the mainstream Democratic position. And even though abortion still isn’t exactly a comfortable issue for Ryan—his progressive primary opponent, Morgan Harper, focused her attacks on his past opposition to abortion rights—a leaked draft of a decision to overturn Roe v. Wade changed that overnight.
On Monday night, Ryan reaffirmed he would vote to end the Senate’s 60-vote threshold in order to re-establish abortion rights should the Supreme Court follow through.
“We cannot sit back and allow the Supreme Court to gut Ohioans’ most fundamental rights,” Ryan said in a statement. “It’s time to end the filibuster… and fight like hell to make sure all Ohio families are free to make these critical decisions without interference from politicians in Columbus or Washington.”
The northeast Ohio native faces an uphill climb to win this increasingly conservative state amid a tough political environment for Democrats. But Ryan’s populist focus on workers’ interests and economic threats from China had impressed Democrats who saw him sketching out a path to a competitive race against whichever staunchly MAGA candidate emerged from the GOP primary—the Trump-endorsed J.D. Vance, as it turns out.
Overnight, however, Democrats have become increasingly eager to make the 2022 midterms a referendum on the GOP’s long quest to outlaw abortion. Now, whether Ryan gains traction in Ohio could depend on how well this one-time abortion foe can capitalize on the public backlash to the end of abortion access.
New poll reveals warning signs for GOP on abortion ahead of midterms
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, one of the first to be conducted entirely after the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s controversial draft opinion, suggests that Republicans risk overplaying their hand on abortion ahead of the 2022 midterms — and that Democrats could benefit if the hot-button issue is on the ballot.
The survey of 1,577 U.S. adults, which was conducted from May 3 to May 6, found that registered voters initially preferred a generic Democrat (44%) over a generic Republican (39%) by 5 percentage points when asked how they would vote in their district if the congressional election were being held today.
But when voters were asked to choose instead between a “pro-choice Democrat” and a “pro-life Republican,” GOP support fell to 31% while Democratic support held steady — more than doubling the gap between the two candidates, to 13 percentage points.
By the same token, 69% of Americans say they would “oppose Congress passing a law that bans abortion nationwide.” The Washington Post reported this week that conservative groups have already met with their congressional allies about a possible “nationwide ban on the procedure if Republicans retake power in Washington,” and several GOP senators have started sketching out policy details.
Democrats are Doing Great Things
Biden Seeks to Rob Putin of His Top Scientists With Visa Lure
The Biden administration has a plan to rob Vladimir Putin of some of his best innovators by waiving some visa requirements for highly educated Russians who want to come to the U.S., according to people familiar with the strategy.
One proposal, which the White House included in its latest supplemental request to Congress, is to drop the rule that Russian professionals applying for an employment-based visa must have a current employer.
A spokesman for the National Security Council confirmed that the effort is meant to weaken Putin’s high-tech resources in the near term and undercut Russia’s innovation base over the long run -- as well as benefit the U.S. economy and national security.
Specifically, the Biden administration wants to make it easier for top-tier Russians with experience with semiconductors, space technology, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, advanced computing, nuclear engineering, artificial intelligence, missile propulsion technologies and other specialized scientific areas to move to the U.S.
Job openings hit new records, while 4.5 million Americans quit or changed jobs in March, reflecting labor market strength
U.S. employers posted a record 11.5 million job openings in March, and some 4.5 million Americans quit or changed positions, matching previous highs, reflecting continued strength in the rapidly growing labor market, where workers continue to have the upper hand.
Meanwhile, the number of new hires — 6.7 million — remained steady, according to a report released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Demand for workers remains white-hot,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “This is very broad, enormous growth. Even though we’ve almost recovered all of the jobs lost in the pandemic, the labor market just keeps getting tighter and tighter.”
America added 428,000 jobs in April
After an electric economic recovery from the pandemic, the job market is showing signs of returning to normal. It’s still growing at a remarkably strong pace
America’s employers added 428,000 jobs in April, the same as in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That’s undeniably good news: America remains 1.2 million jobs in the hole from the early days of Covid, when nearly 22 million jobs vanished over the span of two months.
The unemployment rate, which had been expected to fall to a pandemic-era low, held steady at 3.6%. That’s just a tick above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5%, which matched a 50-year low first set in 2019.
It was the 16th straight month of job growth and the 12th straight month that more than 400,000 jobs were added, but gains have started to moderate.
Pelosi announces $45,000 minimum salary for House staffers
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday announced that the House will now require staffers to get paid a minimum salary of $45,000.
“I am pleased to announce that, pursuant to the statutory authority of the Speaker in 2 U.S.C. 4532, the House will for the first time ever set the minimum annual pay for staff at $45,000,” Pelosi wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter, first reported by Punchbowl News.
Demand Progress, a nongovernmental organization that has pushed for higher staffer pay, celebrated the action by Pelosi on Friday, calling it “a proud moment in congressional history.”
Good News from Ukraine
How Zelensky Gave the World a Jewish Hero
As the Ukrainian president captivates the world with his bravery, he offers a reminder of the inroads Eastern and Central European Jews have made in overcoming their status as perpetual outsiders.
The 44-year-old former comedian turned president has exhibited great patriotism and bravery, joining his fate with that of his countrymen on the streets of Kyiv, refusing to leave despite Western offers of an airlift. If he is now, as he put it, “the No. 1 target” for the Russians, it is because he is the No. 1 Ukrainian. And what is remarkable, truly mind-blowing in the long sweep of history, is that his Jewishness has not stood in the way of his being embraced as a symbol of the nation.
In the Soviet world that shaped Zelensky and his parents, Jews were perceived as the eternal outsiders, possible fifth columnists, the “rootless cosmopolitans” of Stalin’s imagination. This of course came on top of living in a place where a particularly virulent strain of anti-Semitism had always existed, a legacy of pogroms and Nazi collaboration.
Zelensky grabbed the attention of Ukrainians by playing out what has traditionally been the part of the Jew: the outsider. In this case, what Ukrainians saw in this lonely figure banging on the window was themselves, embattled, trying to hold on to their national identity amid growing threats to their independence. It may have been this aspect of his Jewishness and the way it came to dovetail with those Ukrainian anxieties that made him such a suddenly popular figure, winning 73 percent of the vote in his 2019 election.
In these days of war and uncertainty, the fact that a Jew has come to represent the fighting spirit of Ukraine provides its own kind of hope. Along with all that seems to be recurring—the military aggression, the assault on freedom—there is also something new: inclusion and acceptance in a place where it once seemed impossible.
Russia is losing on the electronic battlefield
Among Russia’s most costly mistakes when it invaded Ukraine was the expectation that it would dominate the electronic warfare part of the battle. Instead, Russia has stumbled and lost its way in the little-known realm of intercepting and jamming communications, an increasingly essential element of military success.
Russia’s unexpected failure on the electronic battlefield offers a case study in what has gone wrong for Moscow since the invasion began Feb. 24. The Russians overestimated their own capabilities, underestimated Ukraine’s — and didn’t reckon on the power of NATO military support for Kyiv. These failures left Russia’s forces — and even some of its top generals — vulnerable to attack.
How millions of Russians are tearing holes in the Digital Iron Curtain
When Russian authorities blocked hundreds of Internet sites in March, Konstantin decided to act. The 52-year-old company manager in Moscow tore a hole in the Digital Iron Curtain, which had been erected to control the narrative of the Ukraine war, with a tool that lets him surf blocked sites and eyeball taboo news.
Daily downloads in Russia of the 10 most popular VPNs jumped from below 15,000 just before the war to as many as 475,000 in March. As of this week, downloads were continuing at a rate of nearly 300,000 a day, according to data compiled for the Washington Post by the analytics firm Apptopia, which relies on information from apps, publicly available data and an algorithm to come up with estimates.
Russian clients typically download multiple VPNs, but the data suggests millions of new users per month. In early April, Russian telecom operator Yota reported that the number of VPN users was 53.5 times as high as in January, according to the Tass state news service.
Not only does widespread VPN use help millions reach material laying out the true extent of Russian military losses and countering the official portrayal of the war as a fight against fascists, say Russian Internet experts, but it also limits government surveillance of activists.
E.U. proposes ban on Russian oil imports by end of year
The European Commission has proposed a plan to phase out Russian oil imports, ratcheting up its efforts to cut off a key source of funding for the Kremlin.
the oil ban represents a dramatic shift for the E.U., which in March told the United States it couldn’t join a Russian energy embargo.
“Putin must pay a price, a high price, for his brutal aggression,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday.
Other Good News
One of the ugliest right-wing lies about Jan. 6 is imploding
Of all the lies that the right has pushed about the insurrection attempt, one of the ugliest is that it was a false-flag operation designed to victimize virtuous Donald Trump supporters. Central to this is Ray Epps, a man widely depicted as an FBI informant who deviously manipulated Trump supporters into storming the Capitol.
But this saga also exposes the falsity of a larger right-wing deception campaign: that Jan. 6 actually reveals the profound corruption of our legal and political institutions, from law enforcement to Congress. This spectacular up-is-down agitprop has been central to the whole story that the right tells about the post-Trump era.
On the Lighter Side
Feeling energized and ready to fight? Good! Here is a reminder of things you can do:
DONATE! I set up a place where we can donate and the funds will be distributed evenly between the tossup House and Senate races. Think of it as a one stop shop for using your $$$ to save democracy. Here is the link:
Did you already donate? Great. Do it again (f you can afford it).
Here are some other things you can do:
I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with you ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏾✊🏼❤️💚💛💜🧡✊🏼✊🏾✊🏽✊🏻
