We’ll get to Joe Biden, but first this:
As for Joe Biden, he got his announcement bump (remember, a bump because it may well not last), but Elizabeth Warren’s policy tour is getting noticed. Meanwhile Newt Gingrich says he expects Kamala Harris to win in the end (she’s a new generation) while Pete Buttegieg is the most dangerous to Trump, while discounting Biden. And who do Democrats really want? We don’t know yet! But aside from Uncle Joe, Warren has best week, and Beto worst, in the polls.
Harry Enten/CNN:
You might think that a 76-year-old white man is the wrong person for a moment when the Democratic Party is becoming more and more diverse.
This poll indicates that people of color, at least for the moment, disagree with that assessment.
Biden scores 50% with nonwhite voters in CNN's poll. That compares with the 29% he gets with white voters. This poll matches with prior polls that suggest minorities are a large part of Biden's base.
And in different polling:
What we do know is we want someone who agrees with us, who can win, who attracts independents and who fires up the base. Simple, right? Also, please lower taxes and increase services, thank you.
Michelle Goldberg/NY Times:
Trump’s Anti-Abortion Incitement
The president’s lies about infanticide could inspire violence.
As his raucous crowd booed and screamed, Trump described a hideous scenario that he insists Democrats approve of. “The baby is born,” said Trump. “The mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully” — at this, he seemed to mime rocking an infant — “and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.” He made a chopping motion with his hand.
Trump was elaborating on the willfully misunderstood words of Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, who, in a radio interview in January, responded to a Republican hypothetical about a woman requesting an abortion during labor. A pediatric neurologist by training, Northam described what actually occurs when a woman whose pregnancy may not be viable gives birth. If “a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” he said. “The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
If you haven’t read this tweet piece from a NICU nurse on the bereavement team, you should. Bring tissues.
Emily Shugerman/Daily Beast:
‘Bizarre, Dangerous, and Insulting’: Baby Nurses Fed Up With Trump’s Bogus Abortion Rants
They say his talk of executing babies distorts the palliative care they provide gravely sick infants.
“The families that I've worked with, where I've handed them their babies for the first and last time, they don't deserve this kind of thing,” she told The Daily Beast. “They don’t deserve to be vilified or to be called an executioner.”
Trump’s remark was a continuation of his attacks on later abortions, which he describes as “ripp[ing] babies from their mothers’ wombs right up until the moment of birth.” But while abortion providers may be used to such attacks, the president’s latest criticism has rankled a new group of medical professionals—nurses who take care of babies destined to die.
Benjamin Wittes/Atlantic:
Five Things I Learned From the Mueller Report
A careful reading of the dense document delivers some urgent insights.
The president committed crimes.
There is no way around it. Attorney General William Barr’s efforts to clear President Donald Trump, both in his original letter and in his press conference the morning of the report’s release, are wholly unconvincing when you actually spend time with the document itself.
Mueller does not accuse the president of crimes. He doesn’t have to. But the facts he recounts describe criminal behavior. They describe criminal behavior even if we allow the president’s—and the attorney general’s—argument that facially valid exercises of presidential authority cannot be obstructions of justice. They do this because they describe obstructive activity that does not involve facially valid exercises of presidential power at all.
Molly Jong-Fast/The Bulwark:
Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller Are About to Throw Down. Do We Have to Pick a Side?
We're all losers.
The president’s son-in-law, on the other hand, didn’t register as a Republicanuntil the 2018 midterms. Kushner is often described as a moderating force in the White House, though in truth he seems to be more of a rank-and-file member of the kakistocracy. It’s his incompetence that makes him look moderate. Kushner focused on peace in the Middle East and managing relations with China (and Mexico) and solving the opioid crisis and fixing the VA and making government more like a business. He did not succeed at any of this. Though in fairness, he had to do it all while juggling a bunch of real-estate debt which he did (miraculously!) succeed in getting rescued from at the very last minute by Qatar.
On the other hand, he didn’t write the Muslim ban, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But now that he’s finished not solving all of those other problems, Kushner has decided to tackle immigration. Which raises the distinct possibility that we could be looking at a fight between Trumpism’s top plutocrat and Trumpism’s foremost ideologue.
Which means that someone is going to wind up with a case of the sads.
How serious is Kushner about taking away Miller’s portfolio? He “has spent months focused on finding an immigration compromise” says Axios. “We are putting together a really detailed proposal,” says the princeling himself.
These are the times that try men’s souls.
NY Times:
Newtown Wasn’t an End for Gun Control. It Was a Beginning.
Six years ago this month, Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley watched from the gallery, counting the yeas, as the Senate voted on expanding background checks.
Four months had passed since his son, Daniel, and her son, Dylan, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and at no point in that time had they imagined the bill would fail. The assault weapons ban the Senate rejected the same day was one thing, but background checks seemed like “low-hanging fruit,” Ms. Hockley said.
The bill failed.
Afterward, standing by President Barack Obama at a news conference in the Rose Garden, Ms. Hockley focused all her energy on not bursting into tears. Mr. Barden looked at his wife, Jackie, and their two surviving children and thought: “I’ve failed you. Your country has failed you.”
To many people who thought the massacre of 20 first graders and six of their educators would fundamentally change the nation’s gun politics, the loss felt irrecoverable. But those votes in April 2013 turned out to be a beginning, not an end.
WaPo:
Trump’s lack of cooperation with Congress intensifies impeachment push in House
Earlier this month, several lawmakers from the most liberal wing of the caucus had called for impeachment after the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report. But Pelosi, fearing 2020 election fallout from such a politically divisive step, had asked Democratic investigators to hold off and simply continue their inquiries.
But Trump’s no-cooperation stance is blocking that mission, as his team has publicly directed administration officials to ignore House Democrats, prompting several of the more establishment Democrats to favor pursuing impeachment in a notable shift on Capitol Hill. Pelosi makes the final decision.
“The Mueller report and this assault on the legislative branch made Nancy’s call to avoid impeachment much more difficult for rank-and-file members,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the Oversight Committee. “We’ve moved from [Trump’s] culpability laid out in the Mueller report to an assault on the institution and constitutional framework that is the legislative branch.”
Gary Langer/ABC:
As in 2018, health care ranks among Trump's 2020 challenges (POLL)
The key issue of the 2018 midterms may stick around to trouble President Donald Trump in 2020: Americans, by a 17-point margin, say his handling of health care makes them more likely to oppose than support him for a second term.
That result, from the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marks one of many challenges Trump is expected to face as he seeks re-election.
The Mueller report and his immigration policies are substantial negatives as well. As reported Friday, Trump’s overall popularity is low: just 39 % of people approve of his work in office, and 55% flatly rule out voting for him next year.
Beyond that, a remarkable 75% of Americans, and 85% of registered voters, say they’re certain to vote in the 2020 election -- intended turnout levels typically only seen in the closing days of a presidential contest. If that intensity is maintained, it may boost Democratic candidates, many of whose core support groups are less reliable voters.
But even as Trump faces bigger-than-typical risks for a president seeking re-election, 2020 may not be as much of a slam-dunk for the Democrats as some of his ratings would suggest. One example: Among those who rule Trump out, just 29% say they’ll definitely support his eventual Democratic opponent. Two-thirds say they’re waiting to see who that is.
Daily Beast:
America Under Attack by White Supremacists Acting Like ISIS
A widespread digital network is calling for people to carry out more terrorist attacks after Poway and Christchurch.
After the New Zealand shooting, 8chan users decorated the alleged killer as a “saint” and encouraged each other to commit shootings of their own, including against synagogues, to prepare for the “third world war” against Jews, or to kill a journalist critical of the forum.
“As a lot of people have noted over the past few days, 8chan is an awful cesspool of encouraging violence and hatred,” said Sam Jackson, an assistant professor focusing on online extremism at the University of Albany. “That hate and encouragement of violence might be a sort of baseline, background noise, but periodically someone moves from participating in this online awfulness to committing offline actions.”
Bulwark:
Did We Learn the Wrong Lesson From the Clinton Impeachment?
Conventional wisdom suggests failing to convict and remove a president risks political disaster. What if it doesn’t?
Public hearings are powerful tools to move public opinion. The majority of Americans haven’t read the nearly 500-page redacted Mueller report and haven’t seen the bulk of the revelations within it. Putting people in televised hearings to answer questions about what happened could create iconic moments, such as those that emerged during Watergate.
It’s worth remembering that those hearings, which started under an overwhelming consensus that the Senate would never convict Richard Nixon, led to the president’s resignation. He only handed power to Gerald Ford because he saw the sword of impeachment and removal hanging over him.
The impeachment process ultimately worked; it got rid of a man who had proven himself unfit for the presidency. And, by the way, Republicans then held the White House for 14 of the next 18 years.