Kerry Eleveld

Kerry Eleveld https://www.dailykos.com/user/Kerry Eleveld/rss/index.xml News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Sat, 17 Nov 2018 01:29:15 +0000 Sat, 17 Nov 2018 01:29:15 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Stacey Abrams ends bid to be Georgia governor but threatens suit over Kemp's 'gross mismanagement' https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/16/1813461/-Stacey-Abrams-concedes-Georgia-governor-s-race-but-threatens-suit-over-Kemp-s-gross-mismanagement Georgia Democrat <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/stacey-abrams-calls-brian-kemp-victor-georgias-governors/story?id=59253860" target="_blank">Stacey Abrams ended</a> her hard-fought gubernatorial bid Friday against GOP opponent Brian Kemp, but she threatened to bring a lawsuit over Kemp's "<a href="https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1063555710032711680" target="_blank">gross mismanagement</a>" of state voting laws in his capacity as secretary of state. The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/417209-abrams-concedes-georgia-governors-race?rnd=1542406961" target="_blank">writes</a>: <blockquote> In an address made while surrounded by supporters Friday afternoon, Abrams said that she saw "no legal path forward" for her gubernatorial bid, adding that she would not use the legal system to attempt to "scheme" her way into office. </blockquote> Abrams said Kemp had "failed Georgia" and <a href="https://twitter.com/darrensands/status/1063557723206418433" target="_blank">pledged to launch</a> a new group called "Fair Fight Georgia" to promote fair elections in the state. According to the New York Times, she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/elections/georgia-governor-race-kemp-abrams.html" target="_blank">did not actually concede</a> even as she declared an end to her campaign: <div style="text-align:start"> <div> <blockquote> “Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper,” Ms. Abrams said amid a blistering attack on Mr. Kemp’s record as the state’s chief elections regulator and on the balloting process in Georgia. “As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.” </blockquote> Check out video of Abrams below. </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) BrianKemp Georgia StaceyAbrams _1813461 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 22:42:08 +0000 GOP leadership pathetically begs Trump for new attorney general pick rather than doing their jobs https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/16/1813436/-GOP-leadership-pathetically-begs-Trump-for-new-attorney-general-pick-rather-than-doing-their-jobs Senate GOP leadership is <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/417040-mcconnell-flake-clash-over-protecting-mueller-probe" target="_blank" title="">desperate not to act</a> on the Protect Mueller bill, co-sponsored by two GOP members, that's already cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. So desperate, in fact, they're trying to reason Donald Trump into the swift nomination of a new attorney general to replace his disastrous acting attorney general pick. Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/16/matthew-whitaker-mueller-senate-republicans-995056" target="_blank" title="">writes</a>: <blockquote> They said that naming an attorney general nominee as soon as possible — specifically one who would vow to preserve the Russia probe — would go a long way in halting legislative momentum to protect Mueller and Democratic messaging that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will undermine the investigation. </blockquote> That "Democratic messaging" includes simply highlighting the many times Whitaker himself said he distrusted the investigation, thought it had gone too far, and pondered ways to blunt and/or effectively shut it down. GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas explained, “If we had some confidence that there is somebody nominated that would be confirmed in a reasonable period of time, to me it seems like it would relieve a lot of the controversy." Or you could do your job and pass legislation. “Whoever is going to be there would have to make clear statements about what they intend to do on the special counsel," said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. "The sooner the better. Let’s get it resolved." Or you could do your job and pass legislation. Good god, what a bunch of patsies. Trump is in complete Mueller <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1063046973857718272" target="_blank" title="">meltdown mode</a> ("A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!") and Republicans still just can't quite motivate to safeguard the nation's rule of law from Trump's maniacal impulses. If it weren't so dangerous, it would be amusing. Republicans truly aren't good at legislating, thus their healthcare repeal folly. The one piece of legislation they managed to get over the finish line with one-party rule—the tax scam—proved to be wildly unpopular. Now they've got a bill that polls have shown would have broad support among voters, it's a total lay up, and yet they simply don't have the guts to do their jobs. Pathetic. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) AttorneyGeneral MatthewWhitaker Recommended RobertMueller _1813436 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 21:19:01 +0000 Democrats represent American economies of the future while many GOP districts lag https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/16/1813403/-Democrats-represent-American-economies-of-the-future-while-many-GOP-districts-lag America's politics aren't the only thing that's polarized, so are America's economies. The growing divide between the country's more economically vibrant and diverse areas and it's less dynamic monolithic regions is another factor in what's driving national political divisions. CNBC's John Harwood <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/charts-democrats-represent-modern-economy-republicans-left-behind.html" target="_blank" title="">writes</a>: <blockquote> Republicans represent the smaller, fading segment, with less-educated, more-homogenous work forces reliant on traditional manufacturing, agriculture and resource extraction. Democrats represent the larger, growing one, fueled by finance, professional services and digital innovation in diverse urban areas. </blockquote> If those broad generalizations sound a little absolute, it's because they mostly are that absolute. Check out this chart showing the top 20 GDP-contributing districts are all represented by Democrats now. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Chart showing the top 20 GDP contributing districts are ALL represented by Democrats now, while Republicans represent 15 of the bottom 20 GDP contributors. " src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/612525/large/Screen_Shot_2018-11-16_at_10.53.31_AM.png?1542396465" title="Chart showing the top 20 GDP contributing districts are ALL represented by Democrats now, while Republicans represent 15 of the bottom 20 GDP contributors. "> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Democrats Economy GDP Wealth _1813403 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 19:38:58 +0000 Trump golfing buddy Lindsey Graham set to take over Senate Judiciary Committee https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/16/1813374/-Trump-golfing-buddy-Lindsey-Graham-set-to-take-over-Senate-Judiciary-Committee After completing his whirlwind transition from John McCain bestie to Donald Trump acolyte, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/417109-graham-set-to-take-over-judiciary" target="_blank" title="">set to assume</a> one of the most important positions related to Trump's survival: Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel’s current chair, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, will be assuming chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. Graham's new post will give him a key role in deciding how the Senate Judiciary oversees the special counsel's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. He has reportedly already met with Trump's new Acting Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker, and apparently left satisfied that the Mueller investigation wouldn't be impeded. “As to [the] Mueller investigation, I’m confident that it is not in jeopardy,” Graham said after the meeting, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/417109-graham-set-to-take-over-judiciary" target="_blank" title="">according to</a> The Hill. Of course, Graham could ensure the longevity of Mueller's investigation by pushing to pass the Mueller protection bill he co-sponsored and shepherded through the Judiciary Committee earlier this year. But he's declined to do that even as retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/15/1813145/-Powerful-Republican-bows-to-Jeff-Flake-s-in-demand-for-vote-on-bill-protecting-Mueller-investigation" target="_blank" title="">digs in his heels</a> in support of the measure by vowing to block Trump's judicial nominees in committee until the bill gets a floor vote. One thing <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/13/politics/lindsey-graham-investigations/index.html" target="_blank" title="">Graham does plan to do</a> is recreate the GOP House's Devin Nunes strategy in the Senate by working to sully the FBI's investigation into Trump-Russia and Hillary's emails. <blockquote> "Totally," the South Carolina Republican told CNN when asked if he would look into the FBI's handling of those probes. "The oversight function will be very much front and center." </blockquote> The erstwhile McCain-aligned Graham is now marching in lock step with Trump. Elections have consequences and Graham's 2020 re-election is just around the corner. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump JudiciaryCommittee LindseyGraham _1813374 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 17:48:42 +0000 Trump had 'this Russia thing' on the brain once again with his attorney general appointment https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/15/1813187/-Trump-had-this-Russia-thing-on-the-brain-once-again-with-his-attorney-general-appointment Donald Trump recreated one of his biggest Russia-probe bloopers from 2017 in a Wednesday interview with the conservative outlet the Daily Caller. After famously telling NBC's Lester Holt last year that "<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/president-trump-contradicts-himself-by-claiming-he-didnt-fire-james-comey-over-the-russia-probe.html" target="_blank" title="">this Russia thing</a>" was on his mind when he fired then-FBI Director James Comey, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1063098019657195522" target="_blank" title="">freely associated</a> the "illegal" Russia probe with his appointment of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. "I knew him only as he pertained, you know, as he was with Jeff Sessions," Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1063098019657195522" target="_blank" title="">said in response</a> to his "thinking" about the attorney general position. "And, you know, look, as far as I'm concerned this is an investigation that should have never been brought. It should have never been had. It's something that should have never been brought. It's an illegal investigation." Huh. Why not just say right out loud that he appointed Whitaker to handle an investigation that he thinks is "illegal"? Oh wait: He did just say that. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump MatthewWhitaker russiaprobe _1813187 Thu, 15 Nov 2018 21:39:15 +0000 What blue wave? Trump mini-me Mike Pence declares midterms 'a great win' for Republicans https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/15/1813163/-What-blue-wave-Trump-mini-me-Mike-Pence-declares-midterms-a-great-win-for-Republicans When Donald Trump moves his water bottle, Vice President Mike Pence <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-pence-water-bottle_us_5b18b338e4b09578259ef02c" target="_blank">moves his water bottle</a>. When Trump says the midterms were nearly "<a href="http://time.com/5447972/donald-trump-midterm-elections-results-reaction/" target="_blank">a complete victory</a>," Pence <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/card/pence-midterms-were-great-win-our-side-n936601?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_mtp" target="_blank">also sees </a>"a great win for our side." <blockquote> "We were very encouraged by the results. We thought Tuesday's midterm elections were a great win for our side making history in the senate, electing some great governors around the country," he told NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard in an interview during an overseas trip to Singapore. </blockquote> But the thing that really sets Pence's absurd musings apart is that more than a week of election results have poured in since Trump tried to sell his sham narrative to the nation the day after the election. There's no doubt now that Democrats trounced Republicans in the House while the GOP will be lucky to net even two seats in the Senate. More specifically, the blue-ish Midwestern states that delivered the presidency to Trump swung back hard for Democrats. And <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/9/18075536/midterm-elections-2018-results-governors-state-legislatures-agenda" target="_blank" title="">at the state level</a>, Democrats flipped at least seven governorships, six state legislative chambers, and 300-plus state legislative seats. Trump's been sulking ever since, retreating from public view as it became crystal clear that voters last week pointedly rejected him and the GOP agenda nationwide. But not sunny Mike Pence. His willful ignorance persists more than a week out. "We didn't really see that blue wave in the House of Representatives come our way," he told NBC. Good god, some 40 of the GOP's House seats got washed away in the blue wave Pence "didn't really see." Here's to hoping Republicans are equally as successful in 2020. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 BlueWave Midterms MikePence _1813163 Thu, 15 Nov 2018 19:33:16 +0000 So much for 'all politics are local' and 'it's the economy, stupid'—it's actually just Trump https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/15/1813128/-So-much-for-all-politics-are-local-and-it-s-the-economy-stupid-it-s-actually-just-Trump You're either with Trump or against him. That was the main lesson of 2018. The economy—of the much-touted political axiom “it's the economy, stupid”—is humming along at a decent clip. But it did virtually nothing to save Trump and his eager Republican enablers from the many Americans, especially college-educated women, who would have crawled over glass to vote against him. Oh, and about that other axiom, “all politics is local,” that pretty much got washed away in the aftermath of last Tuesday too. First of all, incumbency did not help Senate Democrats much in the red states, where conservative voters pretty definitively ousted Sens. Claire McCaskill, Joe Donnelly, and Heidi Heitkamp in Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota. Also, as CNN's <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/13/politics/election-2018-politics-local-no-more/index.html" target="_blank" title="">Ron Brownstein notes</a>, the votes of people of similar race, gender, and socio-economic levels tended to trend similarly across the nation. <blockquote> Though some important regional differences remained, voters who shared the same characteristics or resided in similar places largely voted the same way no matter what state they lived in. In virtually every state, Democrats last Tuesday displayed a clear advantage in densely populated, culturally and racially diverse white-collar metropolitan areas, while Republicans relied on elevated margins in the preponderantly white, religiously traditional, smaller places beyond them. </blockquote> In essence, the election largely broke down along the lines of how much certain demographic groups either opposed or supported Trump. The good news for Democrats is that 55 to 60 percent of Americans consistently disapprove of Trump's job performance and even more often disapprove of him personally. The bad news for the nation is that Trump is simply increasing and accelerating political polarization. And the trick for both parties in coming elections will be finding a few but important opportunities to break through the trend and become exceptions to the new rule that “all politics are national.” rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump MidtermTrends _1813128 Thu, 15 Nov 2018 17:35:56 +0000 Without Pelosi, Democrats wouldn't have even had health care to run on. She should be speaker. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/14/1812979/-Without-Pelosi-Democrats-wouldn-t-have-even-had-health-care-to-run-She-should-be-speaker In case anyone has forgotten, Nancy Pelosi has been a more effective legislator than the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/opinion/nancy-pelosi-midterms-democrats-republicans.html" target="_blank">last three GOP House speakers</a> combined. Her crown jewel is having passed a healthcare bill in 2010 that extended insurance coverage to 20-plus million more Americans—arguably the most important domestic overhaul in the country since President Lyndon Johnson signed <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4194925/" target="_blank" title="">Medicare into law</a> in 1965. In fact, Pelosi is likely the Democrats' greatest legislative leader since Johnson. And without her prowess—which included holding her caucus together on a bill with which many progressives were deeply unsatisfied—the incoming Democratic majority wouldn't have even had the winning issue of the election: health care. Yet now there's <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25093451/nancy-pelosi-speaker-democrat-opposition-tim-ryan-seth-moulton/" target="_blank">rumblings that #FiveWhiteGuys</a>, led by conservative Reps. Tim Ryan of Ohio and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, are <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25093451/nancy-pelosi-speaker-democrat-opposition-tim-ryan-seth-moulton/" target="_blank">staging an insurrection</a> that would attempt to pit the left flank of the Democratic caucus against Pelosi’s speakership. They boast of having at least <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-democratic-foes-letter-names-congress-speaker_us_5bec9b94e4b03af89266428d?9jj" target="_blank">17 Democratic members</a> who have signed a pledge not to vote for Pelosi as speaker once the motion hits the House floor next year. On the floor, Pelosi will need 218 votes, a majority of the chamber's 435 members. How many votes Pelosi can afford to lose depends on exactly how many seats Democrats end up winning once all the votes are finally counted. But as Huffington Post's <a href="https://twitter.com/MEPFuller/status/1062833414875820032" target="_blank">Matt Fuller notes</a>, the numbers <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-democratic-foes-letter-names-congress-speaker_us_5bec9b94e4b03af89266428d?9jj" target="_blank">could prove challenging</a>—could being the operative word. <blockquote> While we don’t know the exact breakdown of the House yet, it’s likely to be around 234 Democrats and 191 Republicans ― give or take a couple of members on both sides. If the number is 234 Democrats, Pelosi can lose only 16 Democrats if every member votes. </blockquote> It gets a little more complicated by the fact that members can vote "present," thereby reducing the number of members who actually have to vote affirmatively for Pelosi in order for her to prevail. That option would give cover to some Democrats who pledged not to vote for Pelosi if they got elected. As Daily Kos Elections Director David Nir <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1062859198269153281" target="_blank">explains</a> via tweet: <blockquote> If the House winds up at 234D-201R (a likely scenario), Pelosi could therefore afford to have up to 32 Dems vote "present," and she'd still beat [GOP Rep. Kevin] McCarthy 202-201. However, the rebels have been swearing they won't do this. </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) NancyPelosi Recommended Speaker _1812979 Thu, 15 Nov 2018 03:40:29 +0000 Polls: Midterms were a repudiation of GOP rule and a mandate to check Trump https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/14/1812894/-Polls-Midterms-were-a-repudiation-of-Republicans-and-a-mandate-to-put-a-check-on-Trump Donald Trump has good reason to be epically pouty these days, and America’s voters agree. A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/14/politics/cnn-poll-post-election-happiness-democrats-republicans/index.html" target="_blank">CNN poll</a> finds that 53 percent of American say the midterms were a rejection of Republican policies. Additionally, those who view the election as a mandate for Democrats outpace that of elections past. While only 16 percent of voters saw the GOP's 2014 Senate takeover as a mandate and just 17 percent said the same of the Republicans' 2010 takeover of the House, about twice as many voters this cycle—32 percent—view the Democratic takeover of the House is a mandate. And guess what they want Democrats to do with that mandate? Curb Trump. Monmouth writes of <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_111418/" target="_blank">its latest poll</a>: <blockquote> A majority (52%) of the public say that keeping Trump in check should be a major priority for the new Congress and another 20% say it should be a minor priority. Only 25% say that Congress should not prioritize being a check on the president in the coming term. </blockquote> In other words, nearly three-quarters of voters say putting a check on Trump should be at least some sort of priority. And of those in the "minor priority" camp, 54 percent are Republican, 68 percent are independents, and 92 percent are Democrats. That's about as close to a bipartisan lovefest as anything gets these days. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Democrats DonaldTrump Mandate Midterms _1812894 Wed, 14 Nov 2018 21:12:40 +0000 With each passing day, Democrats grow stronger while Trump grows weaker https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/14/1812850/-With-each-passing-day-Democrats-grow-stronger-while-Trump-grows-weaker Last week's Democratic rout is starting to settle in among some Republicans. Even with the structural disadvantages of GOP gerrymandering, Democrats are now poised to pick up anywhere between 35 and 40 seats. And Democrat Kyrsten Sinema's win in Arizona means Republicans will at least be limited to a two-seat pickup in the Senate while perhaps just gaining a meager one seat, depending on the Florida recount. Overall, the GOP's future stands to get <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/politics/midterm-results-democratic-gains.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank" title="">consistently bleaker</a> over time. Republicans lost women, young people, independents, and Latinos by a lot while Democrats made big gains with suburban voters and even seniors, to some extent. If you wanted to boil it down even further, CNBC’s <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1062684964695752706" target="_blank" title="">John Harwood notes</a>: <ul> <li>Republicans carried white evangelical Christians by 53 percentage points </li> <li>Democrats carried everyone else by 34 points</li> <li>White evangelical Christians are only one-fourth of the electorate</li> </ul> Republican pollster and congressional adviser David Winton hopes Republicans don't use their retention of the Senate as a reason to ignore their midterm drubbing. “We didn’t lose the Senate, but losing by the margins that we did with a lot of these groups is unsustainable,” Winston <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/politics/midterm-results-democratic-gains.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">told</a> the New York Times. While Trump did manage to drive up turnout among his older white rural voters, in many competitive races that wasn’t enough to offset Democratic gains in more densely populated suburbs and exurbs. Not only will Democrats end up flipping around 20 of the 23 GOP-held districts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, they also picked up at least 17 seats in districts where Trump prevailed. In other words, Democrats' overall haul will be fueled almost equally by Clinton districts and Trump districts alike, suggesting Trump may underperform considerably in 2020. In fact, Democrats cleaned house up and down the ticket in the three blue-leaning Midwestern states that went for Trump last cycle—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. That said, Ohio remains a trouble spot for Democrats in 2020. Trump's white rural base proved enough to push almost every contested race in the Buckeye State in the direction of Republicans with the exception of Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown's seat. Democrats will now face a strategic choice to some extent of working to engage and deepen their support in more diverse states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas, or aiming to win back rural white voters in Ohio. As the Times writes: "Democrats will have a narrower path to the presidency nationwide as long as Ohio leans red. But the peril may be greater for Mr. Trump, who could have difficulty in 2020 replicating the regional sweep that made him president in the first place." rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 Democrats DonaldTrump Midterms Recommended _1812850 Wed, 14 Nov 2018 18:58:41 +0000 Once-safe gerrymandered GOP districts get decimated by Trump https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/13/1812638/-Once-safe-gerrymandered-GOP-districts-get-decimated-by-Trump Democrats have won at least 15 of the 25 GOP-held districts with the highest concentration of college-educated residents, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/13/republicans-trump-redistricting-house-2018-984947" target="_blank" title="">according to Politico</a>. The districts were part of a large swath of mostly suburban seats that were intentionally gerrymandered to be safe Republican, sometimes at the hands of GOP lawmakers and sometimes at the hands of Democrats. Take two Illinois districts Democrats purposely drew with a concentration of once-GOP-leaning voters—IL-06 and IL-14, represented by Republican Reps. Peter Roskam and Randy Hultgren, respectively. Both men lost their re-election bids last week, after the seats hadn’t even been on Democrats' radar in the last three election cycles. Another notable Democratic flip is GOP Rep. Karen Handel's seat in the Atlanta suburbs, where Handel had prevailed just last year in a highly watched special election. "Handel was one of just seven Republicans in the current House whose adult constituents were majority college-educated; there may be just one such member in the next Congress," writes Politico. Trump put districts in play that no one on either side of the aisle thought of as targets before he got elected. As Daily Kos reader silver spring <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/12/1812355/-HISTORIC-U-S-House-Realignment" target="_blank" title="">noted in a diary</a>, about half of the Democrats' House pickups came in seats that haven't elected a Democrat "in a quarter of a century or longer, in some cases, much longer." That's pretty extraordinary. Check out Politico's list of the GOP’s 25 most highly educated districts. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) collegeeducated DonaldTrump Midterms suburbs _1812638 Tue, 13 Nov 2018 22:07:08 +0000 Is Trump's 'Ponzi scheme' crumbling? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/13/1812604/-Is-Trump-s-Ponzi-scheme-crumbling Several weeks ago, a <a href="https://twitter.com/MSignorile/status/1062166876908859392" target="_blank">GOP strategist told</a> SiriusXM's Michelangelo Signorile that Donald Trump's hold on his followers is a Ponzi scheme. "It only works as long as it appears to work," Signorile <a href="https://twitter.com/MSignorile/status/1062166876908859392" target="_blank">observes</a>. "A few major losses can bring the whole thing crashing down. I feel like that’s happening. And Trump knows it." Similar to Signorile, <a href="https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/collapse.html" target="_blank">blogger Digby</a> thinks Trump’s scheme may be collapsing even among his own followers, thus <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/203207/trump-job-approval-weekly.aspx" target="_blank">Trump falling</a> to just 38 percent approval in Gallup's weekly tracking poll—practically plummeting from his 44 percent approval a couple weeks out from Election Day. <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Gallup tracking poll of Trump" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/611445/large/Screen_Shot_2018-11-13_at_11.40.11_AM.png?1542138789"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> "If I had to guess," Digby <a href="https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/collapse.html" target="_blank">writes</a> of Trump's drop, "I'd say that it's because his ‘winner’ bubble has burst and some of his voters finally realize that he isn't teflon and they've had to accept that his absurdity is a liability." Trump's most fervent followers not only see him as their champion, they seem to get a certain sense of self-worth by attaching themselves to him and his supposed "winning." It's clearly validating for many of them to be seen, and then be seen as crushing their detractors and/or those who they believe have ignored and disrespected them in the past. But there's no fun in attaching yourself to someone who's vulnerable and weak—a loser. That's a death knell for someone whose success depends almost entirely on their cult of personality persisting among a minority of the population. Last week, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811270/-Sorry-Trump-it-was-absolutely-a-blue-wave" target="_blank">Trump declared</a> the midterms “very close to a complete victory” for him and the GOP. Since then, Democrats have cemented a resounding victory in the House, significantly blunted the GOP’s pickups in the Senate, and key races have slipped back into recounts. Has anyone noticed how desperate Trump is to win in Florida? rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Approvals Gallup Midterms PonziScheme Recommended _1812604 Tue, 13 Nov 2018 20:06:07 +0000 Trump repulsion in the suburbs reshapes national map for 2020 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/13/1812571/-Trump-repulsion-in-the-suburbs-reshapes-the-national-map-for-2020 Donald Trump repels people with a college education—women more than men. But still, "Trump is kryptonite in the suburbs," retiring GOP Rep. Ryan Costello <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-13/midterms-point-to-reshaped-map-for-2020-presidential-campaign" target="_blank" title="">told Bloomberg</a>. Based on nationwide exit polls, Democrats won college educated whites by 8 points this cycle after losing them to Trump by 3 points in 2016. Women were the driving force behind that shift, favoring Democrats by 20 points. And Costello expects Trump to collapse another 5-10 points by 2020. "Because, look, he’s not going to be running against Hillary," he says. "Some people who tried him out may not be willing to digest that in 2020." "Nationally, Republicans won men, whites and voters over 45 years old, while Democrats won women by an extraordinary 19 points and led among non-whites and voters under 45," writes Bloomberg. But it's the education divide that seems to have put some new states in play while sidelining others. Whites without a college degree, men especially, favored Republicans by 34 points. That means states with larger rural, non-college educated populations are trending heavily Republican. The shift led to the defeats of Democratic senators in red states like North Dakota, Missouri, and Indiana and led to a near GOP sweep in Ohio, with the notable exception of Sen. Sherrod Brown. The trend also practically takes the once swingy Buckeye State off the 2020 map for Democrats even as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin swung back toward Democrats this election. But as Ohio leans more red, Arizona and Georgia are becoming more competitive while Nevada and Virginia are becoming more reliably blue. Florida, however, "will be a nettlesome issue” for any Democratic nominee in 2020, says former Hillary Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon. (As a side note, it will be interesting to see how the addition of about <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/06/florida-restores-voting-rights-to-more-than-1-million-former-felons.html" target="_blank" title="">1.5 million former felons</a> and newly eligible voters in the Sunshine State changes the political environment.) And Texas, well, at the very least Republicans can't simply take it for granted anymore. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2020 DonaldTrump Midterms PresidentialMap _1812571 Tue, 13 Nov 2018 18:04:24 +0000 House Democrats weigh investigating Trump's links to Russian money laundering https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/12/1812401/-House-Democrats-weigh-investigating-Trump-s-links-to-Russian-money-laundering As Democrats eye a fecund field of investigative options, Donald Trump's ties to Russian money laundering provides one relatively untapped area of inquiry. Incoming Democratic House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff has expressed interest in the topic recently, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/house-democrats-may-investigate-alleged-trump-ties-to-russian-money-laundering/" target="_blank" title="">notes</a> Mother Jones's Dan Friedman. “No one has investigated the issue of whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization and this is the leverage that the Russians have over the president of the United States,” Schiff noted at a Brookings Institution event last month. Schiff brought up money laundering again last week when <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/07/665387746/rep-adam-schiff-weighs-in-on-whats-ahead-for-house-intelligence-committee" target="_blank" title="">NPR asked him</a> what direction he planned to take the committee, noting that neither the House nor the Senate had been “allowed to pursue” it. Democrats on the Intelligence panel also touched on the money laundering topic in a statement they issued last March after Republicans abruptly ended the probe, concluding they had found no evidence of collusion. Democrats were specifically interested in Trump's ties to Deutsche Bank, which suffered a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-deutsche-mirrortrade-probe/deutsche-fined-630-million-for-failures-over-russian-money-laundering-idUSKBN15E2SP" target="_blank" title="">$630-million fine</a> last year for its role in a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scheme. Under a section titled "Financial Leverage," Democrats <a href="https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf" target="_blank" title="">wrote</a>, "We must also seek to determine: Did the Russian government, through business figures close to the Kremlin, seek to court Donald Trump and launder funds through the Trump Organization; and did candidate Trump’s financial exposure via Deutsche Bank or other private loans constitute a point of leverage that Russia may have exploited and may still be using?" Democrats named eight lines of incomplete inquiries in that March statement—all areas that they can choose to pursue once they take control of the House next year. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) AdamSchiff DonaldTrump MoneyLaundering Russia _1812401 Tue, 13 Nov 2018 00:36:16 +0000 Democrats call for adding 'Protect Mueller' measure to government funding bill https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/12/1812344/-Democrats-call-for-adding-Protect-Mueller-measure-to-government-funding-bill Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Sunday for a provision that would protect the special counsel's Russia investigation to be added to a government funding bill that's due to be considered in the coming weeks. Democrats are working to prevent Donald Trump's recent appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general from interfering with special counsel Robert Mueller. If Whitaker doesn't recuse himself from overseeing the probe, <a href="https://apnews.com/86930bd0a5654f888933c4040e42bb3b?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP_Politics&utm_source=Twitter" target="_blank" title="">Schumer told</a> the Associated Press, “Democrats in the House and Senate are going to attempt to put on must-pass legislation, mainly the spending bill, legislation that would prevent Whitaker from interfering in any way with the Mueller investigation." The Mueller protection bill would give any special counsel an avenue to seek review of their firing and ensure there was sufficient cause for such an action. The legislation, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last spring, was co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to take it up with the full Senate. Whitaker has rather notoriously written op-eds and given interviews in which he declared there was no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, charged that Mueller was overstepping his mandate, and imagined a scenario in which Justice Department officials overseeing the Russia probe starved it of funding. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter Sunday to the chief ethics officer of the Department of Justice urging him to disclose if he had advised Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the investigation and his underlying reasoning for doing so or not. New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told ABC's This Week that he's prepared to call Whitaker before his committee if he's still serving as acting attorney general by the beginning of next year. “One of our first orders of business will be to invite him, and if necessary to subpoena him, to appear before the committee,” Nadler said, noting that safeguarding Mueller’s investigation would be his committee’s top priority. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) ChuckSchumer DonaldTrump JerroldNadler ProtectMueller RobertMueller Russia _1812344 Mon, 12 Nov 2018 20:38:11 +0000 Rick Scott denied: Florida judge can't find 'any evidence' to impound Broward voting machines https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/12/1812300/-Rick-Scott-denied-Florida-judge-can-t-find-any-evidence-to-impound-Broward-voting-machines A Florida judge on Monday morning <a href="http://www.therepublic.com/2018/11/12/us-election-2018-florida-the-latest-5/" target="_blank">denied</a> Florida Governor and Senate candidate Rick Scott's request to impound Broward County voting machines and ballots when they were not in use, a move that appeared to be a nakedly partisan effort to cast doubt on the integrity of Broward's recount process. "I don’t think I have any evidence to enter a mandatory injunction right now,” said state court Judge Jack Tuter, and Jeb Bush appointee, in denying Scott's request. Tuter also <a href="https://twitter.com/JimRosicaFL/status/1062023347268186112" target="_blank">urged both sides</a> to "ramp down the rhetoric" and said anyone who actually had evidence of fraud should come forward. "Transparency is imperative in this case," <a href="https://twitter.com/JimRosicaFL/status/1062023347268186112" target="_blank">he added</a>. Florida is currently a tangled web of recounts and lawyers that's likely to get much worse before it gets better. Monday’s hearing included four cases and 17 lawyers according to <a href="https://twitter.com/dominicholden/status/1062019351082086400" target="_blank">Buzzfeed's Dominic Holden</a>. “Everyone wants to intervene in every case, basically,” Tuter said at the outset. Ultimately, Tuter tasked all the parties with coming up with some monitoring agreement amongst themselves and suggested having <a href="https://twitter.com/dominicholden/status/1062038430388027393" target="_blank">three sheriff's deputies</a> monitor the election headquarters. Lawyers for the parties in the case are supposed to <a href="https://twitter.com/dominicholden/status/1062038437023399936" target="_blank">provide their proposal</a> to the judge by 1 PM EST. “I am not casting any dispersions on any officials right now. I am going to leave it to you and see if you can reach an agreement," <a href="https://twitter.com/dominicholden/status/1062038437707026432" target="_blank">Tuter said</a> before recessing. All <a href="http://www.therepublic.com/2018/11/12/us-election-2018-florida-the-latest-5/" target="_blank">67 counties</a> are racing to meet a Thursday deadline for their machine recounts. Scott's team has put most of the emphasis on two heavily Democratic counties, Broward and Palm Beach, both of which have been central to recount dramas in the past. Scott has taken aim in particular at Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, a Democrat who was appointed to the post in 2003 <a href="https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/politics/elections/who-is-brenda-snipes-the-broward-county-supervisor-of-elections/67-612946611" target="_blank">by then-Republican Gov. Jeb Bush</a>. Snipes has been re-elected to the position every four years since: 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. Scott has good reason for trying to both curtail and cast doubt on the recount process in Florida, and a lawyer for Sen. Bill Nelson thinks he knows what it is. <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;This is why Rick Scott is trying to shut down the recount and prevent all lawful votes from being counted. We have filed two federal court cases to ensure Floridian&amp;#39;s votes are counted. &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CountEveryVote?src=hash&amp;amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;#CountEveryVote&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://t.co/ZBMLiSH10u"&gt;pic.twitter.com/ZBMLiSH10u&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1061997065432154112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;November 12, 2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt; '><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">This is why Rick Scott is trying to shut down the recount and prevent all lawful votes from being counted. We have filed two federal court cases to ensure Floridian's votes are counted. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CountEveryVote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CountEveryVote</a> <a href="https://t.co/ZBMLiSH10u">pic.twitter.com/ZBMLiSH10u</a>— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) <a href="https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1061997065432154112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2018</a></blockquote> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) BillNelson DonaldTrump Florida FLRecounts Recommended RickScott _1812300 Mon, 12 Nov 2018 18:38:15 +0000 View from the Left: Democrats' 2018 win lays out strategy for 2020 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/10/1811710/-View-from-the-Left-Democrats-2018-win-lays-out-strategy-for-2020 Democrats won Tuesday and <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811270/-Sorry-Trump-it-was-absolutely-a-blue-wave" target="_blank">they won bigly</a>. Their House pickups represented their best performance in any single election <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811290/-How-enormous-was-2018-Democrats-have-picked-up-the-most-House-seats-since-Watergate" target="_blank">since Watergate</a>, when in 1974 voters elevated 49 new Democrats to office. At the time of this writing, <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwL51WmRmqnHAoaIQj96pP_Psd7HYEDn5HBPDubJy3s/edit#gid=692076271" target="_blank">34 new Democrats</a> had been elected—representing a net gain of 32 seats—and Democrats were still <a href="https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1061049737565126656" target="_blank">poised to pick up</a> several more seats as the final returns come in. How far House Democrats ate into GOP advantages in red districts will certainly be mulled by people smarter than me. What I do generally think is true is that, if 2016 represented an upheaval of some long-held Democratic alliances with non-college white voters, then 2018 certainly represented a similar upheaval of a once taken-for-granted allegiance between Republicans and college-educated white voters in the suburbs. And while Senate Democrats took some hits in red states, Republicans didn't really expand their map into swingy presidential states. With Florida and Arizona still uncalled, Senate Democrats won handily in most swing states: PA, OH, MI, WI, MN (x2), NV and VA. As 538's Nate Silver <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1060905552899915778" target="_blank">noted</a>: "Republicans haven't yet won any Senate races yet in what you'd think of a presidential swing states. MO is the closest but it's quite red now." With those basics about the electoral map in mind, it's worth reflecting on all <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/9/1811572/-Democrats-were-epically-NOT-IN-DISARRAY-this-election-cycle" target="_blank">Democrats did right</a> strategically, especially in the House, as a roadmap to 2020. What I am most struck by is how Democrats owned the ground game, by entirely ignoring Trump, ignoring the Washington pundits, and focusing like a laser beam on the message they chose—even against some of their own instincts. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 2020 Midterms ViewFromTheLeft _1811710 Sat, 10 Nov 2018 19:00:03 +0000 No, counting votes IS NOT stealing votes, and Florida's votes still haven't been counted https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/9/1811591/-No-counting-votes-IS-NOT-stealing-votes-and-Florida-s-votes-still-haven-t-been-counted-yet <a href="/campaigns/petition/sign-the-petition-count-every-vote" class="dk-action-link" data-action="petition" data-slug="sign-the-petition-count-every-vote" data-src="https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v3/petition/sign-the-petition-count-every-vote?format=js&source=widget&can_widget_id=can-petition-area-sign-the-petition-count-every-vote-598179" data-href="/campaigns/petition/sign-the-petition-count-every-vote">Campaign Action</a> Republicans are quickly whipping up their Florida base into a virulent froth, with <a href="https://twitter.com/harrisalexc/status/1060939943936180227" target="_blank" title="">GOP protesters descending</a> on Broward County to accuse Democrats of committing “<a href="https://twitter.com/harrisalexc/status/1060938279212724224" target="_blank" title="">voter fraud</a>.” In particular, they are targeting Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes. ”We want (Snipes) in handcuffs. We want her whole staff locked up,” protester <a href="https://twitter.com/harrisalexc/status/1060938279212724224" target="_blank">Janet Klomburg told</a> Miami Herald reporter Alex Harris on Friday. “This race was stolen from us.” Kudos on the hysteria, but the votes haven’t even been fully counted in Broward yet. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Republican lawmakers from stoking unfounded fears about fraud. From Donald Trump to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to Senate candidate Rick Scott to GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, <a href="https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/trump-fans-protest-at-broward-elections-office-10898449" target="_blank">Republicans are inciting</a> the endemic fears of their continually aggrieved base. “We cannot continue to allow this to be the banana republic of Broward,” <a href="https://twitter.com/harrisalexc/status/1060947551581544450" target="_blank">Gaetz said</a> Friday, calling for the state to take control of Broward elections. And by “the state,” he means Scott, who is presently both Florida’s sitting Governor and the man on a quest to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Gaetz is just parroting the messages from on high. En route to Paris on Friday, <a href="https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1060953060808237056" target="_blank">Trump was hatching</a> conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory during his executive time on Air Force One. “As soon as Democrats sent their best Election stealing lawyer, Marc Elias, to Broward County they miraculously started finding Democrat votes,” Trump tweeted about <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/who-marc-elias-trump-election-stealing-1209671" target="_blank">the Democratic attorney</a> representing Nelson’s campaign. “Don’t worry, Florida - I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!” Trump also sent a <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1060964991510110208" target="_blank">shout out to Rubio</a>—apparently now the Devin Nunes of the Senate—after Rubio promoted <a href="https://twitter.com/jerryiannelli/status/1060742776860692480" target="_blank">his own conspiracies</a> on Twitter Thursday. In a “Long but IMPORTANT” thread, <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/marco-rubio-opposes-recount-in-florida-senate-race.html" target="_blank">Rubio charged</a> that <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1060596888372699136" target="_blank">Broward elections officials</a> had “opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate.” He also provided zero evidence of this, because that’s the way Republicans roll now: spout lies, point fingers, and let the fallout ensue. Which is exactly what’s happening Florida right now. Here’s a FACT: After Scott publicly called for an investigation into voter fraud, Florida law enforcement officials say <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/09/after-scott-requested-investigation-law-enforcement-says-no-voter-fraud-allegations-found-690552" target="_blank">no voter fraud has been found</a> nor was <a href="https://twitter.com/stevebousquet/status/1060964919644958720" target="_blank">any official complaint</a> made. FACT: Scott and Nelson <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/09/after-scott-requested-investigation-law-enforcement-says-no-voter-fraud-allegations-found-690552" target="_blank">are now separated</a> by a margin of just .18 percent, or <a href="https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1060889221571981314" target="_blank">about 15,000 votes</a>. If that margin holds, the race will go to a manual recount under Florida law. FACT: The votes are still being counted and election officials currently have until Saturday to do that. Check out some of the GOP’s developing protests to actually counting the votes below. <div> <a name="update-1541799215000"></a> </div> <div class="live-update-wrapper" data-epoch-time="1541799215000"> <a class="live-update-link" href="#update-1541799215000"> Friday, Nov 9, 2018 · 9:33:35 PM +00:00 · Kerry Eleveld </a> <div class="live-update-content">UPDATE: Things are complicated. Scott filed 2 public records request lawsuits. In Broward, Snipes said she hadn’t denied the request, just hadn’t had time to fulfill. Federal judge has now <a href="https://twitter.com/NadegeGreen/status/1060995884949913600" target="_blank">ordered Snipes to comply</a> with the records request by 7 p.m. tonight. </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 CounttheVote DonaldTrump Florida FloridaSenate MarcoRubio Midterms RickScott _1811591 Fri, 09 Nov 2018 20:37:35 +0000 Democrats were epically NOT IN DISARRAY this election cycle https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/9/1811572/-Democrats-were-epically-NOT-IN-DISARRAY-this-election-cycle The first jolt to the DC punditry has been <a href="https://twitter.com/kerryeleveld/status/1060923542286389248" target="_blank">trying to absorb</a> that, actually, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811270/-Sorry-Trump-it-was-absolutely-a-blue-wave" target="_blank">Tuesday was a wave election</a> and Democrats totally kicked butt (perhaps <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1060905552899915778" target="_blank">even in the Senate</a> given the electoral map). But here's the second mind-blowing realization for Washington journalists: Democrats were a vision of symmetry and downright wicked discipline in the midst of Trump's whirling Tasmanian devil routine. In fact, while the GOP caucus <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811326/-Paul-Ryan-deserves-as-much-credit-for-the-GOP-s-trouncing-as-Trump" target="_blank">practically disintegrated</a> before our very eyes, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/democrats-republicans-house.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share" target="_blank">reports</a> that Democrats homed in on a message early and then just pounded on it like a jackhammer to create their own path to victory. As Nancy Pelosi told reporters Wednesday: "We made our own environment because we knew how important health care was." Early in 2017, as the Republicans tried to jam their healthcare repeal bill through, Pelosi and her leadership team decided Democrats would counter the effort by focusing almost exclusively on the pre-existing conditions part of the Affordable Care Act. They also planned to emphasize what they called the "age tax," a GOP provision that would have allowed insurers to charge older customers higher premiums. They, in fact, chose those aspects of the law over talking about Planned Parenthood and Medicaid. “Those things are in our DNA," Pelosi would often say, "but they are not in our talking points." What they also settled on was simply letting Trump be Trump and ignoring him entirely. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico told the Times how difficult it was. <blockquote> “Every time he would say something or tweet something, it would come back: ‘We need to come right back at him! Define him!’” Mr. Luján recalled. “We would say: Look, we don’t need to talk about him, he’s going to do it himself. We need to continue to have a conversation with the American people about kitchen-table issues.” </blockquote> By focusing on healthcare repeal and the votes most congressional Republicans had cast in support of it, Democrats could localize the races to some extent by making GOP candidates the targets of their policy-driven campaigns. In the meantime, with every dawning day and every new tweet, Trump would nationalize the race on his own. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Democrats HealthCare Midterms NancyPelosi Recommended _1811572 Fri, 09 Nov 2018 18:40:54 +0000 Paul Ryan deserves as much credit for the GOP's midterm trouncing as Trump https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/8/1811326/-Paul-Ryan-deserves-as-much-credit-for-the-GOP-s-trouncing-as-Trump One of the more enjoyable reads in the election post-mortem was the New York Times's "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/democrats-republicans-house.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share" target="_blank">How the House fell</a>." The article lays out the striking contrast between how the GOP's divided caucus helped seal their own defeat while a hyper-disciplined Democratic caucus worked in unison to triumph. But let's focus on the Republican side of the equation in this post, and come back to the Democrats in another. What's clear from the Times' reporting is that while Donald Trump drove the GOP messaging into the ground, the House Speaker Paul Ryan’s abysmal management skills spurred an exodus of members that set Republicans up for near-certain failure. It all began with Ryan's choice to go after the purely partisan goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act as the GOP’s first experiment in unilateral control. Not only was the legislation not a sure thing, it immediately split the caucus between the hardliners and the "moderates" on an issue that is notoriously complicated and not even remotely in the GOP's wheelhouse. The moderate-conservative fissures deepened with the tax bill, even though Republicans actually succeeded in getting that to Trump's desk. Ryan also stepped all over the toes of the GOP lawmakers chairing House committees. The combination of not building consensus amid his caucus along with micromanaging his committee chairs had disastrous results. <blockquote> The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. [Ed] Royce held a quickly diversifying Orange County seat that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 even as it re-elected him. But he told colleagues that he bitterly resented the fruitless, politically damaging health care debate, and announced his retirement in a statement that took the N.R.C.C. by surprise. Within weeks, Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, followed suit. Though he had pledged to seek re-election, Mr. Frelinghuysen was incensed over the way Mr. Ryan treated him during the tax overhaul debate — the speaker, Mr. Frelinghuysen told associates, had threatened to eject him from his chairmanship. </blockquote> On Tuesday, Frelinghuysen’s seat, NJ-11, turned blue. Meanwhile, ballots are <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pol-california-house-election-20181108-story.html" target="_blank">still being counted</a> for Royce’s seat, CA-39. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump Midterms PaulRyan Post-mortem _1811326 Thu, 08 Nov 2018 21:57:36 +0000 Sorry, Trump, it was absolutely a blue wave https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/8/1811270/-Sorry-Trump-it-was-absolutely-a-blue-wave The Upshot's Nate Cohn writes that House Democrats are projected to win the popular vote nationwide by 7 to 8 points once all the votes are counted. That's slightly better than the GOP's margin in 2010 or even 1994 and roughly the same as the Democrats' margin in 2006. "In a word," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/upshot/2018-midterms-blue-wave-democrats.html" target="_blank">Cohn writes</a>, that's "a wave." And he's right, it's a wave by any measure except for that of Donald Trump and some GOP strategists. “I thought it was very close to a complete victory,” <a href="http://time.com/5447972/donald-trump-midterm-elections-results-reaction/" target="_blank">Trump said</a> during his extraterrestrial post-election rant Wednesday. That's fine, let Republicans ignore the trouncing entirely while Democrats build on it for 2020. As of now, Democrats have <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwL51WmRmqnHAoaIQj96pP_Psd7HYEDn5HBPDubJy3s/edit#gid=692076271" target="_blank">flipped 34 House seats</a>, at least <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/7/18071410/democrat-state-legislature-colorado-minnesota-election-results" target="_blank">seven governorships</a>, and <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/statevote-2018-state-legislative-races-and-ballot-measures.aspx" target="_blank">six legislative chambers</a>. Those numbers don't include outstanding races where either votes are still being counted and/or recounts might still ensue. In the Senate, Democrats were defending 26 seats in total, 10 in states that Trump won by a lot, and at this juncture Democrats have surrendered <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwL51WmRmqnHAoaIQj96pP_Psd7HYEDn5HBPDubJy3s/edit#gid=526842497" target="_blank">only three of those seats</a> while flipping at least one other from red to blue. (Outcomes in Florida and Arizona remain in question, while Mississippi is headed to a runoff.) It was the toughest Senate map in a century and, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/card/undecided-senate-races-could-prove-pivotal-long-term-senate-control-n933551" target="_blank">at most</a>, Republicans could end up with a 54-seat majority. So far, all the GOP pick ups have come in deeply red states—Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota—meaning Republicans didn't expand their map into truly purple or blue states. But the Democratic gains in the House were pretty extraordinary given the challenges they faced. Not only were the vast majority of the districts highly gerrymandered to favor Republicans, Democrats also had to make the bulk of their pickups in red districts (versus winning back seats in friendly territory, similar to what the GOP did in the Senate). As Cohn writes: <blockquote> At the beginning of the [2018] cycle, only nine Republicans represented districts that tilted Democratic in the previous two presidential elections. Even in a wave election, these are usually the only incumbents who are standing on the beach with a greater than 50 percent chance to lose. There were 24 such Republicans in 2006, and 67 such Democrats in 2010. </blockquote> In other words, Democrats this cycle started off in a far worse position than either party did in the previous two wave elections. When all the votes were counted in 2006, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-could-win-50-house-seats-here-s-how-n792061" target="_blank">Democrats netted 30 seats</a>. So far this cycle, they've already netted 32 pick ups even though they had fewer easy pick offs. Democrats have also picked up more seats in deep-red districts this cycle than Republicans did deep-blue seats in 2010. That's a wave. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 Midterms wave _1811270 Thu, 08 Nov 2018 18:28:57 +0000 Trump just made a huge miscalculation in firing Jeff Sessions https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/7/1810988/-Trump-just-made-a-huge-miscalculation-in-firing-Jeff-Sessions The very day after Americans sent the crystal-clear message that they want Democratic oversight of his presidency, Donald Trump decided the smart move was to take aggressive action that will in fact require House Democrats to use those oversight powers. For that reason and others, Trump made both a political and a tactical mistake Wednesday in firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and installing Robert Mueller’s arch-nemesis to oversee the Russia probe. First of all, nothing holds more peril than making the move everyone expected when you have pretty close to no idea what cards are being held by your adversary, special counsel Robert Mueller in this case. As a former federal prosecutor and colleague of Mueller told MSNBC Wednesday, contingency planning runs in Mueller’s veins. “He has contingency plans for everything,” Glenn Kirschner said of Mueller. "I can assure you Mueller and his team have been preparing for a moment like this," he added, saying that Trump’s move would only accelerate their timeline. And from a purely political standpoint, Trump just made his own corruption impossible for Democrats to ignore as they prepare to assume their oversight role in January. Right on cue, the incoming chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform <a href="https://democrats-oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/cummings-issues-statement-on-removal-of-attorney-general-sessions" target="_blank" title="">issued a statement</a> about Sessions’ firing. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump JeffSessions RobertMueller _1810988 Wed, 07 Nov 2018 22:13:27 +0000 Pelosi lays out vision of competent governance for nation, a welcome salve at a critical time https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/7/1810936/-Pelosi-lays-out-vision-of-competent-governance-for-the-nation-a-welcome-salve-at-a-critical-time Donald Trump and Republicans spent the past two years governing in a vacuum of competence and leadership. On Wednesday, likely Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a message: That ends right here, right now. "When we go down any of these paths, we’ll know what we're doing and we'll do it right," Pelosi said of investigating Trump. But her response regarding Democratic oversight was the overarching theme of the press conference she gave literally moments after Trump finished a 90-minute blathering bender of a press conference from the White House East Room. Predictably, Pelosi said Democrats’ first three legislative priorities would be lowering health care costs, creating jobs through an infrastructure plan, and cleaning up corruption in Washington. This was the governing platform Democrats ran on, and now they plan to deliver. "Health care was on the ballot, and health care won," she said. "We want to create jobs from sea to shining sea," she said. She also promised to "clean up corruption to make America work for the people's interests, not the special interests." Pelosi pledged to "insist upon openness and transparency" in the governing process so Americans can see "the impact of legislation on their lives." She also welcomed bipartisanship, noting that she found ways to work with George W. Bush in 2006 when Democrats reclaimed control of the House during his presidency. "We believe we have the responsibility to seek common ground where we can," Pelosi offered. What Pelosi delivered was a master class in governance. After running on a completely clear agenda with meticulous message discipline, House Democrats plan to do exactly what they said they would do and they plan to do it openly and transparently. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Democrats DonaldTrump NancyPelosi _1810936 Wed, 07 Nov 2018 19:54:47 +0000 Florida Sen. Bill Nelson isn't conceding: 'We are proceeding to a recount' https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/7/1810831/-Florida-Sen-Bill-Nelson-isn-t-conceding-We-are-proceeding-to-a-recount Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is not conceding his Florida seat to challenger Rick Scott. "We are proceeding to a recount," Nelson said in a statement, <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/nelson-wont-concede-in-florida-senate-race-we-are-proceeding-to-a-recount" target="_blank" title="">according</a> to TPM. On Wednesday morning, Nelson was lagging behind Scott by some 35,000 votes, putting him as the underdog by less than half a percent. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Chart showing Rick Scott on top with 50.2%, and Bill Nelson with 49.8%." src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/608774/large/Screen_Shot_2018-11-07_at_7.58.46_AM.png?1541606729" title="Chart showing Rick Scott on top with 50.2%, and Bill Nelson with 49.8%."> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> The first step will be for officials in the state’s 67 counties to verify their counts. After that, the Nelson campaign will try to locate any voters whose ballots weren't counted for whatever reason. The deadline for determining whether a recount will take place is Saturday. <div> <a name="update-1541610462000"></a> </div> <div class="live-update-wrapper" data-epoch-time="1541610462000"> <a class="live-update-link" href="#update-1541610462000"> Wednesday, Nov 7, 2018 · 5:07:42 PM +00:00 · Kerry Eleveld </a> <div class="live-update-content">UPDATE: Big News... <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;Breaking: The &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/RepDeSantis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;@RepDeSantis&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewGillum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;@AndrewGillum&lt;/a&gt; fight is not over for the Florida governorship. The Gillum camp offers numbers are closer with a difference of 15 Thousand votes between the two. &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewGillum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;@AndrewGillum&lt;/a&gt; folks contend they are not giving up! More votes remain to be counted.&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/AprilDRyan/status/1060196196948566017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;November 7, 2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt; '><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Breaking: The <a href="https://twitter.com/RepDeSantis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepDeSantis</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewGillum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AndrewGillum</a> fight is not over for the Florida governorship. The Gillum camp offers numbers are closer with a difference of 15 Thousand votes between the two. <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewGillum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AndrewGillum</a> folks contend they are not giving up! More votes remain to be counted.— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) <a href="https://twitter.com/AprilDRyan/status/1060196196948566017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2018</a></blockquote> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) BillNelson Florida Recommended _1810831 Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:10:02 +0000 Republicans governed like their base was all that mattered—it cost them the House https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/6/1810611/-Republicans-governed-like-their-base-was-all-that-mattered-it-cost-them-the-House After a thin slice of some 80,000 votes in several Rust Belt states tipped the presidency toward Donald Trump in 2016, Republicans decided to govern as if they had a bulletproof mandate. Instead of formulating bills on major issues that might draw some Democratic buy in, they entirely shut out Democrats from the legislating process and chose to go it alone on major issues like health care and taxes. When House Republicans just barely passed the first Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll256.xml" target="_blank">bill 217-213</a>, not a single Democrat voted for it. When the same bill <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-gop-effort-repeal-obamacare-fails-n787311" target="_blank" title="">stalled in the Senate</a>, 49-51, not a single Democrat voted for it there either. The same was true for the GOP's $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to rich Americans and corporations—<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/us/politics/tax-bill-vote-congress.html" target="_blank" title="">not a single Democrat</a> voted for it in the House or Senate. Both pieces of legislation lacked the popular support of the electorate. Just <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/06/28/534612954/just-17-percent-of-americans-approve-of-republican-senate-health-care-bill" target="_blank" title="">17 percent of Americans</a> backed the GOP's healthcare bill when Republicans were trying to jam it through. Support for the tax bill was similarly underwhelming, with only <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/01/on-the-eve-of-tax-cut-bill-few-americans-actually-want-it/?utm_term=.114bc9872124" target="_blank" title="">28 percent of Americans</a> favoring its passage. Democrats listened to those warning signs; Republicans simply ignored them. Instead, Trump and GOP leadership governed in a bubble—pounding out their bills behind closed doors hermetically sealed from public opinion. Nearly all GOP lawmakers followed suit. Even House Republicans in swing districts, such as Colorado's Rep. Mike Coffman, hewed to Trump's party line, snubbing Democratic and independent voters in their districts. Coffman, for instance, voted with Trump <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mike-coffman/" target="_blank" title="">nearly 96 percent</a> of the time, although he did vote against the health care bill after facing raucous constituent opposition to repealing the ACA. The same was true for Virginia’s Barbara Comstock—she voted with Trump <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/barbara-comstock/" target="_blank" title="">nearly 98 percent</a> of time with one of her only defections coming on health care, which many of her constituents also vehemently opposed. Republicans also ran their midterm campaigns in a similar way, pounding home a GOP-only strategy that emphasized immigration—<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/244367/top-issues-voters-healthcare-economy-immigration.aspx" target="_blank" title="">a top Republican issue</a>—over all else as if the rest of the electorate didn’t exist. Comstock, for instance, <a href="http://www.startribune.com/ap-fact-check-claims-in-comstock-ms-13-ad-fall-short/492005261/" target="_blank" title="">ran an ad</a> attacking her Democratic opponent Jennifer Wexton featuring images of the Latino gang MS-13. It was right out of Trump’s playbook. In the end, Trump’s appallingly racist rhetoric on immigration backfired in the House, particularly in suburban districts like those of Comstock and Coffman, both of whom lost their seats, as did governing as if some <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/13/1795383/-Is-the-country-really-divided-or-is-it-just-Republicans-vs-the-rest-of-the-nation" target="_blank">two-thirds of electorate</a> didn’t exist. Now Democrats will get the chance to do what they were elected to do—legislate like the rest of America matters. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Democrats DonaldTrump Immigration Midterms _1810611 Wed, 07 Nov 2018 06:46:06 +0000 Republicans could have taken a moral stand against Trump's racism. They didn't—now they're worried https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/6/1810489/-Republicans-could-have-taken-a-moral-stand-against-Trump-s-racism-They-didn-t-now-they-re-worried Having watched Donald Trump burn through state after state with the darkest, most blatantly racist message in a generation of politicians, Republicans are having second thoughts after clinging to Trump like an electoral life vest. In fact, some of them, who dared not give their name, sound downright pissed off. “This stupid birthright stuff is hard-right fringe and loses us Hispanics and Cubans" in places like California and Florida, one moderate Republican House member <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/republicans-worry-trump-s-closing-argument-will-cost-them-seats-n931826" target="_blank">told NBC News</a>. “It juices Hispanic turnout in exurbs for potentially one to three points and is another reminder why Trump’s doom and gloom bullshit is so off-putting.” Huh. You mean referring to some immigrants as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/full-trumpism-the-presidents-apocalyptic-attacks-reach-a-new-level-of-falsity/2018/11/04/8e4fb87e-e043-11e8-b759-3d88a5ce9e19_story.html?utm_term=.31597c3d5e5b" target="_blank" title="">the worst scum in the world</a>” is driving Latinos to the polls? Naturally, House Speaker Paul Ryan's messaging strategist made the weakest appeal ever via Twitter last weekend for the GOP to sound more positive notes. "Were going to spend all day and weekend talking about the strong economy, right?" Brendan Buck tweeted. Yeah, that'll do it. Ryan also made a personal appeal to Trump via phone to stick to the economy, according to Politico. But Republicans are likely underestimating the damage Trump's doing. It's not just Latinos, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/1/1809199/-Trump-s-nationalism-rippling-through-America-s-suburbs-is-roiling-the-GOP" target="_blank">it's the suburbs</a>, where the GOP traditionally holds a big advantage. One GOP strategist, for instance, noted that Rep. John Culberson of Texas was running about four points ahead of Democrat Lizzie Panill Fletcher before Trump started blaring his nativist best. Now, internal polling puts Culberson several points behind. Culberson represents the Houston area, and his Dallas counterpart, GOP Rep. Pete Sessions, is also fighting for his political life. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump Latinos Midterms Nativism Racism Recommended suburbs _1810489 Tue, 06 Nov 2018 19:09:52 +0000 Young people this cycle have doubled their 2014 early vote totals https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/5/1810256/-Young-people-this-cycle-have-doubled-their-2014-early-vote-totals Early voting by young people this cycle is already up 125 percent over early vote totals from 2014, according to a progressive voter database group called Catalist. The data holds potential for Democrats because voters age 18 to 29 typically skew more progressive than voters over 30, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/powerup/2018/11/05/powerup-will-there-be-a-youth-wave-early-voting-points-to-yes/5bdf5c391b326b39290545bd/?utm_term=.15f4b2a58c59" target="_blank" title="">reports</a> the Washington Post. Here’s the early voting totals from Catalist: <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Catalist early vote totals showing just over 1 million early ballots cast by voters under 30 in 2014 vs. more than 2.3 million in 2018." src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/608106/large/Screen_Shot_2018-11-05_at_4.09.49_PM.png?1541464695" title="Catalist early vote totals showing just over 1 million early ballots cast by voters under 30 in 2014 vs. more than 2.3 million in 2018."> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> The data counters the conventional wisdom that the youth vote wouldn't figure heavily into 2018 outcomes. “Clearly, they’re going to be, especially if those voting are as Democratic as they survey," said one Democratic strategist. "It’s a big boost for Democrats’ hopes.” Republican pollster Chris Wilson of WPA Intelligence stopped short of calling the numbers "historic," but admitted young people will account for a larger-than-usual share of the electorate this cycle. “Voters under 25 are outpacing their vote share from both the 2016 and 2014 general," Wilson said. "Proportionately it’s not enough to make a huge difference, but it’s more." A <a href="http://iop.harvard.edu/spring-2018-national-youth-poll" target="_blank" title="">poll of 18- to 29-year-old</a> voters from the Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP) showed the demographic favored Democratic control of Congress by 34 points, 66-32 percent. IOP polling director Della Volpe said young voters more than ever are starting to connect politics and who's elected to tangible outcomes in their lives. <a href="https://votewithme.us/?pid=dailykos&c=midterms" target="_blank" title="">Get out the vote! The VoteWithMe app lets you see which of your contacts live in swing districts and need your reminder to vote.</a> <a href="https://www.vote.org/polling-place-locator/" target="_blank" title="">Don't know where to vote on Tuesday? Click here to find out!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 Midterms YouthVote _1810256 Tue, 06 Nov 2018 01:05:16 +0000 Nearly every undecided Independent female broke for Democrats over last six months https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/5/1810153/-Nearly-every-undecided-Independent-female-broke-for-Democrats-over-last-six-months If you're wondering how Donald Trump’s racist fearmongering among other things has been playing to Independent female voters, here's some insight from Civiqs <a href="https://twitter.com/DrewLinzer/status/1059233693837942785" target="_blank" title="">Director Drew Linzer</a>: Over the past six months, nearly every undecided Independent female voter has broken for Democrats on the generic ballot. The Democratic advantage has gone from 41-34 percent at the beginning of May to 52-36 percent now, with Democrats making consistent gains among female Independents over that period while Republicans nearly flatlined. <div class="dk-civiqs-embed dk-editor-embed"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <a class="iframe_placeholder civiqs dk-embed" href="//civiqs.com/results/embed?snapshotUrl=production-model-results.civiqs.com/snapshots/ad6ca4d7-ba04-4e4b-a7dc-65c8b06210ca" data-frameborder="0" data-height="550px" data-src="//civiqs.com/results/embed?snapshotUrl=production-model-results.civiqs.com/snapshots/ad6ca4d7-ba04-4e4b-a7dc-65c8b06210ca" data-width="100%">Civiqs Results</a></div> While it’s hard to know exactly what initiated the trend, it’s at least amusing (if not telling) to note the uptick for Democrats began right after April 26, the day Trump called into Fox News for a phone interview that lasted about 30 minutes until the hosts pulled the plug on it. You surely remember the one—I prefer to call it the “<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/28/1760547/-View-from-the-Left-Trump-seals-his-fate-with-Fox-pajama-phoner-that-will-go-down-in-history" target="_blank">Fox pajama phoner</a>.” Happy to hear other theories below, but I’m doubting any of them will tickle me more than that. But more importantly, #VOTE! <a href="https://votewithme.us/?pid=dailykos&c=midterms" target="_blank">Get out the vote! The VoteWithMe app lets you see which of your contacts live in swing districts and need your reminder to vote.</a> <a href="https://www.vote.org/polling-place-locator/" target="_blank">Don't know where to vote on Tuesday? Click here to find out!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump GenericBallot independentwomen Midterms _1810153 Mon, 05 Nov 2018 20:47:39 +0000 Democrats appear to be closing strong in final stretch https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/5/1810121/-Democrats-appear-to-be-closing-strong-in-the-final-stretch The final round of polling before Election Day held some good news for Democrats. Though the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/political-kaleidoscope-one-day-out-there-s-midterm-path-both-n931261" target="_blank">generic ballot</a> in <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-voter-preference-trump-health-care-center-stage/story?id=58935954&cid=social_twitter_abcn" target="_blank">several new</a> high-quality polls gave Democrats around the same <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/" target="_blank">8-point edge</a> (give or take) that it has for the last month, the fundamentals in <a href="https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1059456073818652674" target="_blank">individual House districts</a> generally looked slightly stronger for Democrats in some tight districts. This was true in the final round of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-polls.html?smid=tw-upshotnyt&smtyp=cur" target="_blank">New York Times/Sienna polls</a> conducted over the last several days (generally Oct. 28/29 to Nov. 4). As The Upshot's Nate Cohn tweeted yesterday, their final data found Democrats running on average <a href="https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1059182963013963777" target="_blank">several points ahead</a> of their first round of polling in the same districts. Here's a handful of fun potential flips to think about: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-ca48-3.html" target="_blank">CA-48</a> <ul> <li>Harley Rouda (D): 46 percent</li> <li>Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R): 45 percent </li> </ul> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-ga06-3.html" target="_blank">GA-06</a> <ul> <li>Lucy McBath (D): 46 percent</li> <li>Rep. Karen Handel (R): 44 percent</li> </ul> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-il14-3.html" target="_blank">IL-14</a> <ul> <li>Lauren Underwood (D): 49 percent</li> <li>Rep. Randy Hultgren (R): 43 percent</li> </ul> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-ky06-3.html" target="_blank">KY-06 </a> <ul> <li>Amy McGrath (D): 44 percent</li> <li>Rep. Andy Barr (R): 44 percent</li> </ul> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-tx32-3.html" target="_blank">TX-32</a> <ul> <li>Collin Allred (D): 46 percent</li> <li>Rep. Pete Sessions (R): 42 percent</li> </ul> In every case but one, the Democrat is running slightly better than they did during the Times/Sienna polling of the same race in September (Times/Sienna didn't poll GA-06 before, so there's no previous data for that race). This general uptick for Democrats is being reflected in last-minute House ratings changes by outlets like Cook Political Report, which just made <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/house/house-overview/final-house-ratings-75-competitive-races-ten-rating-changes" target="_blank">10 final adjustments</a>, nine in the direction of Democrats. For instance, the hard-fought GA-06 seat (i.e. the Jon Ossoff race) that went for Republicans in last year's special election is now deemed a "Toss Up" by Cook rather than "Lean Republican." rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 Democrats Midterms Recommended _1810121 Mon, 05 Nov 2018 19:05:50 +0000 Take Trump literally—he's a nationalist and a threat to our democracy as we know it https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/3/1809605/-Take-Trump-literally-he-s-a-nationalist-and-a-threat-to-our-democracy-as-we-know-it Last week, Donald Trump declared himself a "nationalist" while campaigning for Sen. Ted Cruz in Houston. "We’re not supposed to use that word,’” <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/22/trump-nationalist-926745" target="_blank">Trump told</a> his Texas acolytes. “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist. OK? I’m a nationalist.” Believe him. Nationalism is the flag under which fascists and dictators have reigned for centuries. Adolf Hitler was defined by the rabid nationalism—and ethno-nationalism, in particular—he injected into German society. He rose to power by instilling a sense of pride in some Germans while demonizing others—Jewish people, in particular. He strove to create the greatest of nations by elevating the Aryan race as superior to all others and driving out anyone who might sully it in his view. Even writing about it, turns my stomach. But we must not forget what the word "nationalist" has been used in service of as we go to the polls Tuesday in what will be the most consequential midterm of our lifetimes. Donald Trump has shown all the signs of someone who leads by other-izing, ginning up national pride as if it is the province of certain people but not others. He presents anything done in service of that pride as justifiable. His whimsical proclamations sometimes seem stunningly amateurish by virtue of how poorly considered they are. But don't be fooled—time and time again Trump and a band of his racist, anti-immigrant advisors have followed through on his wildest musings. In 2015, when Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-total-and-complete-shutdown-of-muslims-entering-the-united-states/" target="_blank">called for</a> a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," as repulsive as putting a religious prohibition on entrants into the country seemed, no one really believed Trump would become president at that early stage of the campaign let alone follow through on something that appeared to be a campaign stunt. Yet the very first major directive of Trump's presidency, the Muslim ban the White House called a "travel ban," became perhaps the most instructive of his tenure. The executive order was shoddily conceived both legally and administratively and, in fact, fatally flawed when the Department of Homeland Security suddenly, without warning, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/protest-trump-travel-ban-muslims-airports" target="_blank">began detaining travelers</a> from seven majority-Muslim nations and blocking others from traveling here during the final weekend of January 2017. Though it would take Trump's lackeys <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/27/17284798/travel-ban-scotus-countries-protests" target="_blank">two more iterations</a> before the Supreme Court finally decided the ban passed Constitutional muster, the intent was clear: block people of a certain faith and ethnic makeup from gaining access to the U.S. It was exactly as he had announced on the campaign trail even if the execution was disastrous. The formula was one Trump has recreated repeatedly as president: Conjure up a policy that is racist, inhumane and likely unconstitutional and do it anyway, boldly and proudly, no matter how much chaos and human suffering it causes. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump Midterms Nationalism ViewFromTheLeft _1809605 Sat, 03 Nov 2018 18:00:17 +0000 If Democrats succeed on Election Day, women will be one big reason https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/2/1809461/-If-Democrats-succeed-on-Election-Day-women-will-be-one-big-reason There has been a lot of reporting on the phenomenon of white college-educated women moving away from Republicans and, in some cases, running toward Democrats due to how repulsed they are by Donald Trump. Some of this has been anecdotal, but the polling on women is telling. In a Washington Post/ABC news poll, Trump enjoys <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/suburban-women-midterms-2018/?utm_term=.9bee44126d90" target="_blank">48 percent support</a> among men compared to just 33 percent support among women. And check out the trend lines from the same poll on female party identification over the last eight years, which is moving increasingly toward Democrats and away from the GOP. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Screen_Shot_2018-11-02_at_12.58.23_PM.png" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/606896/large/Screen_Shot_2018-11-02_at_12.58.23_PM.png?1541193346" title="Screen_Shot_2018-11-02_at_12.58.23_PM.png"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> Democratic gains among women start around the end of 2014, when just over 50 percent of female voters identified as Democrats, and get a nice little bump when Trump becomes pr*sident, reaching 58 percent now. And in the eight-year period between 2010 and 2018, Republicans lost fully 7 points among women who identify with the party. Indeed, Civiqs polling also shows independent women leaning more toward Democrats during Trump’s tenure, starting last spring with 40 percent preferring Democrats in the generic ballot compared to 51 percent now. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump Midterms suburbs _1809461 Fri, 02 Nov 2018 21:41:42 +0000 Nothing will be more predictive of Tuesday's outcome than YOUR VOTE https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/2/1809417/-Nothing-will-be-more-predictive-of-Tuesday-s-outcome-than-YOUR-VOTE The biggest sign yet that polls and polling models may turn out to be wildly wrong this year is the surge in early voting, which <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/1/1809090/-In-at-least-17-states-early-vote-totals-have-already-exceeded-the-early-vote-in-2014" target="_blank">appears to be real</a> and not simply a matter of the early vote cannibalizing Election Day voting. For instance, The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/414098-young-and-new-voters-surge-in-early-voting" target="_blank">reports</a> that early voting among younger voters, who are typically lower-propensity voters, has already surpassed 2014 totals in many places. <blockquote> The number of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 who have cast ballots early has surpassed turnout levels from the last midterm election in just about every state, according to several sources tracking early vote totals. [...] In Texas, 332,000 voters under the age of 30 have cast ballots already, up nearly five fold from the 2014 midterms. </blockquote> Young voters in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada are also exceeding their 2014 early voting numbers thus far. What this suggests is the turnout models many pollsters have used, which weigh the likelihood of certain groups to turn out based on past election performance, could be very, very wrong. Everyone, no doubt, recalls 2016 when Donald Trump's Electoral College win fueled by some 80,000 votes in the Rust Belt shocked the nation. However, Virginia's 2017 polling actually proved to be far less accurate. Pundits spent most of the week before Election Day predicting a tightening gubernatorial race between Virginia Democrat Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie. Then voters went to the polls and handed Northam a decisive 9-point victory over Gillespie, along with an historic number of red-to-blue flips in the state legislature. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 Midterms Polling _1809417 Fri, 02 Nov 2018 18:25:50 +0000 Following Pittsburgh massacre, Trump deliberately doubled-down on racism to reclaim the spotlight https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/2/1809378/-Following-Pittsburgh-massacre-Trump-deliberately-doubled-down-on-racism-to-reclaim-the-spotlight In the wake of a week centered around the violence of pipe bombs and a tragic synagogue massacre, Donald Trump, egged on by his political team, knew just what to do. He needed to detract attention away from the carnage incited by his hateful rhetoric with a final racist, anti-immigrant onslaught for the ages. So on the day following his trip to Pittsburgh to pay his respects to the victims of last week's anti-Semitic shooting, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1057728445386539008" target="_blank" title="">posted a tweet</a> featuring video of an immigrant charged with murder and bragging about the killings in court. "Democrats let him into our country," read text laid over the video. It's a lie. The man, Luis Bracamontes, was deported twice <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/2/1809302/-The-killer-at-the-heart-of-Trump-s-racist-ad-was-set-free-by-Arizona-sheriff-Joe-Arpaio" target="_blank" title="">and let back in</a> by the George W. Bush administration. But <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/02/trumps-new-immigration-ad-was-panned-racist-turns-out-it-was-also-based-falsehood/?utm_term=.99ba3957e452" target="_blank" title="">accuracy</a> wasn't Trump's concern, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/trump-immigration.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank" title="">writes</a> the New York Times: <blockquote> [The video] had been in the works for several days, and was released on Wednesday in an effort to change the focus of cable television from the pipe bombs and the Pittsburgh killings. </blockquote> By Thursday, Trump was particularly pleased with himself. “For seven days, nobody talked about the election — it stopped the tremendous momentum,” he told the crowd gathered at a Missouri rally. “Now, the momentum is picking up.” <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump Midterms Racism _1809378 Fri, 02 Nov 2018 16:19:09 +0000 Trump's nationalism, rippling through America's suburbs, is roiling the GOP https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/1/1809199/-Trump-s-nationalism-rippling-through-America-s-suburbs-is-roiling-the-GOP As Donald Trump pulls out every nationalistic xenophobic trick in his political playbook, House Republicans in suburban swing districts are taking a beating this election. While there's a more <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/31/1808868/-Nothing-is-boosting-House-Democrats-more-than-Trump-s-racist-xenophobic-closing-argument" target="_blank">data-driven case</a> to be made for this, the New York Times is supplying <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/republicans-trump-house.html" target="_blank">anecdotal evidence</a> from voters in districts where GOP incumbents are struggling to hang on to their seats. Take Republican Rep. John Culberson in TX-07, a district now squarely viewed as toss-up territory after not electing a Democrat since the 1960s. In 2016, Houston-based attorney J. Mark Metts split his ticket between Culberson for Congress and Hillary Clinton for president. Not this time. “With Congress not really standing up to Trump, this election is becoming a referendum,” Metts told the Times, explaining why he won't be voting for Culberson this time around. Another suburban voter who won't be splitting her ticket this year is Pennsylvania suburbanite Shelley Howland, who backed Clinton for president but voted for down-ballot Republicans, including Brian Fitzpatrick. <blockquote> “This year, it’s going to be a straight Democratic ticket,” said Ms. Howland, 65, lamenting “this whole movement to the alt-right, Steve Bannon in the White House, Trump in the White House.” </blockquote> The shift is scaring GOP operatives. “I’m not hearing anything helpful at all,” said Gene DiGirolamo, a Republican state legislator from Bucks County, part of Fitzpatrick's district. GOP Texas Speaker of the House, Joe Straus, echoed DiGirolamo, calling it "unthinkable" that Culberson and his Dallas counterpart, Rep. Pete Sessions, are both facing hotly contested races. Straus said Trump has “changed the Republican Party in ways that are just less appealing to the traditional Republicans and independents we’ve always relied on.” The long-term damage that might do to the party is what many Republicans really fear—especially if they lose a demographic of reliable voters like college-educated white women. Such a shift could upend the political landscape for the party, losing more well to-do whites in relatively populous suburbs even as they gain some less affluent whites in less populated rural areas. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Recommended suburbs _1809199 Fri, 02 Nov 2018 00:23:05 +0000 White House promises immigration policy announcement, Trump delivers lie-laden anti-immigrant rant https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/1/1809160/-White-House-promises-immigration-policy-announcement-Trump-delivers-lie-laden-anti-immigrant-rant When the White House told news networks Donald Trump planned to make an <a href="https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1058049994039746560" target="_blank">important policy announcement</a> regarding asylum Thursday afternoon, CNN chose to take it live, while MSNBC decided to fact-check it first and run whatever news came out of Trump’s “announcement” later. MSNBC chose smart. Trump repackaged his rant-filled stadium stump speech about the “invasion” of migrants weeks away from our southern border and delivered it from the White House. He issued no proclamation, no rule, no executive order, and what exactly the new policy would be wasn’t even clear. Bottom line: This was nothing but a midterm political stunt. What he did say is that if you cross border illegally and apply for asylum, you will be "held"—<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-asylum/asylum-seekers-sue-u-s-government-over-prolonged-detention-idUSKCN1GR2E3" target="_blank">which already happens</a> in some cases when people turn themselves over to authorities. Perhaps the administration plans to <a href="https://americasvoice.org/press_releases/sessions-again-limits-independence-of-immigration-judges-and-signals-his-intent-to-increase-detention-of-asylum-seekers/" target="_blank" title="">increase the frequency and duration</a> of holding asylum seekers, though that wasn’t exactly clear. If there was one startling piece of news, it was this: Trump said the U.S. military would treat rock-throwing by the migrants—if that even happens—as though it was use of a firearm. Throwing of stones and rocks, Trump said, "We will consider that a firearm." (From the pool report: "They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. I told them to consider it a rifle.") Again, it’s not even clear there will be any violence at the border, since individuals are coming to seek asylum, not stage an altercation. But Trump delivered nothing so straightforward as a policy change. Instead, he promised an executive order “<a href="https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1058097451347951616" target="_blank">sometime next week</a>.” rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Asylum DonaldTrump Immigration _1809160 Thu, 01 Nov 2018 21:41:34 +0000 In at least 17 states, early vote totals have already exceeded the early vote in 2014 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/1/1809090/-In-at-least-17-states-early-vote-totals-have-already-exceeded-the-early-vote-in-2014 Time for your friendly reminder to get your vote on because, well, everybody's doing it! Okay, well, at least more than usual appear to be doing it. Without drawing any big conclusions here about which party this favors, it is absolutely notable that early vote totals thus far have surpassed the early and absentee voting totals from 2014 in at least 17 states, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/early-vote-totals-in-at-least-17-states-already-surpass-2014-turnout/2018/10/31/6647795a-dd25-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html?utm_term=.e0884d518885" target="_blank" title="">according to</a> the Washington Post on Wednesday. (By Thursday, the number seemed to have <a href="https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1057852296309157888" target="_blank" title="">increased to 19 states</a> plus DC.) In some states, <a href="https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1057852296309157888" target="_blank">such as Texas</a>, early vote totals might actually exceed the total vote in 2014 (early plus Election Day voting). University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald says the data suggests both Democrats and Republicans are turning out at high levels in key races. <blockquote> “We can’t know who people are voting for, but we can see who is showing up to vote,” said McDonald, who compiles a clearinghouse of voting data called <a href="http://www.electproject.org/" title="">the Elections Project</a> . “What we’re seeing is very high levels of engagement on both sides in the competitive elections for governor and Senate.” </blockquote> It's still hard to know whether the high early engagement will amount to a "cannibalism effect," as McDonald puts it, where some early voting simply eats into the Election Day totals. But the increases have been steep enough that some experts believe overall turnout will exceed the paltry 2014 turnout of 37 percent among eligible voters, the most dismal midterm showing since World War II. Two states with critical races for both the Senate and governor seats, Florida and Nevada, are among those with increased early turnout. While early, absentee, and mail-in ballots in Nevada in 2014 amounted to around 308,000 voters, by early Wednesday, this year's totals had already reached over 460,000. The point is: There's a lot at stake folks, and both sides seem to know it. So gather up your aunts, uncles, kids, parents, etc. and get 'em to the polls! Our country needs you. Oh, and if you encounter ANY problems voting, you can report them to the group Election Protection by calling (866) OUR-VOTE or going to its website at https://866ourvote.org. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/" title="">Want to help Democrats vote but unsure how? Try this: click here, enter your zip code, and RSVP for a volunteer shift.</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181101KE1" target="_blank" title="">Still fired up? Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of both the House and Senate!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 GOTV Midterms Turnout _1809090 Thu, 01 Nov 2018 17:47:52 +0000 Trump 'self-destructing' as GOP heads into midterm with more of a whimper than a roar https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808945/-Trump-is-self-destructing-as-GOP-heads-into-midterm-with-more-of-a-whimper-than-a-roar Just after Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio had good news for Donald Trump—Republicans just might hold on to both the Senate and the House in the upcoming election. That forecast had the ever-moody Trump feeling very sunny, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/trump-aides-brace-for-shake-up-kellyanne-conway-steve-mnuchin-midterms" target="_blank">writes</a> Vanity Fair. <blockquote> “Trump’s mood was great,” a former West Wing official who spoke with him told me. </blockquote> But that Kavanaugh "bump," such as it was, hasn't lasted through the final stretch, according to most everyone's count, including Fabrizio's. He now believes Republicans will lose the House and has told as much to Trump's aides. In fact, they've been feeling so politically desperate in the wake of the "MAGA bomber" and the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre that they toyed with the idea of Trump delivering a big "unity" speech from the Oval Office. But Trump wasn't having it—he panned the idea. Instead, they decided to go full-on base, whipping up GOP hysteria with nativist appeals and attacks on the media. “He was really upset the momentum had been killed by the pipe bombs,” one Republican close to the White House told Vanity Fair. Thus, Trump's unconscionable "Bomb stuff" tweet lamenting what a shame it was that pipe bombs intended to kill Democrats were slowing GOP momentum at the polls. Now, it's catch as catch can: CNN and the media, birthright citizenship, terrorists among the migrants, troops at the border. “All of this feels like Hail Mary passes—throw red meat to drive turnout,” a former West Wing official said. “In a way, the Kavanaugh bump peaked too early.” Oh, what could have been if only Trump's conspiracy theories hadn't literally been weaponized. As one might expect, Trump is kinda losing it given the turn of events. “The president is self-destructing,” one former White House official said. Buckle up, the week to come is going to be grim. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181031KE2" target="_blank">Want to do more? Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of both the House and Senate!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) BrettKavanaugh DonaldTrump Midterms Recommended _1808945 Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:45:50 +0000 Nothing is boosting House Democrats more than Trump's racist, xenophobic closing argument https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808868/-Nothing-is-boosting-House-Democrats-more-than-Trump-s-racist-xenophobic-closing-argument In his final campaign push, Donald Trump is <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/29/1808285/-Trump-scraps-the-House-to-focus-his-final-campaign-push-on-the-Senate" target="_blank">avoiding heading to places</a> where he might hurt GOP incumbents, yet his constant racist, xenophobic attacks on immigrants and refugees are simply too incendiary to escape notice. That is terrible news for House Republicans clinging to their majority with an electoral map that runs through suburban America. The idea that crazy nativist policies like sending troops to the border to head off a group of desperate migrants could float below the radar is as fanciful as the notion that anti-immigrant racism would be the perfect closing argument for Republicans in 2018. As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/business/midterms-economy-house-control.html" target="_blank">notes</a>, "more than a third of the elections set to determine control of the House are being held in districts that rank as the most prosperous in America." And equally as important, those districts are largely not receptive to the other-ist fearmongering and resentment Trump has used to harden his most loyal base. <blockquote> The toss-up districts “are by and large pretty dynamic places, where the status quo is working rather well,” John Lettieri, the president of the Economic Innovation Group, said in an interview. “Things like globalization and immigration aren’t things to be feared there. They’re woven into the fabric.” </blockquote> <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump Immigration Midterms Racism Xenophobia _1808868 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 21:08:08 +0000 Trump's random push to end 'birthright citizenship' didn't help Republicans in tough races one bit https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808788/-Trump-s-random-push-to-end-birthright-citizenship-didn-t-help-Republicans-in-tough-races-one-bit Donald Trump's spontaneous declaration that he wants to end the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship rights to babies born in the U.S. came entirely out of the blue, and now many White House aides hope it "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-eyeing-executive-order-to-end-citizenship-for-children-of-noncitizens-born-on-us-soil/2018/10/30/66892050-dc29-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?utm_term=.7da5736bb4f2" target="_blank">just goes away</a>," according to the Washington Post. Not only does Trump have zero legal basis for overturning a constitutional amendment by executive order, the idea is nothing but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/powerup/2018/10/31/powerup-trump-s-birthright-citizenship-comments-just-made-life-harder-for-republicans-in-tight-races/5bd8a9101b326b37e00b5a16/?utm_term=.44994c2a51e6" target="_blank">a total wild card</a> for GOP candidates and incumbents working to close out tough races. For instance, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller sympathized with Trump without taking any position on the proposal one way or the other. <blockquote> “I understand the President's frustration on immigration and border security because I am frustrated, too,” Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), in a tough reelection race, said in a statement that didn't mention birthright citizenship. (emphasis added) </blockquote> Florida Gov. Rick Scott, hoping to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, practically ran from the issue, saying he <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-florida-birthright-citizenship-20181030-story.html" target="_blank">needed to see "details"</a> before he could take a position. “I have not seen the details of what the president is suggesting and would need to fully review the proposal,” Scott said in a statement. Sen. Nelson, meanwhile was quick to reject Trump's latest whim, tweeting: "The Constitution says that if you are born in the USA you are an American citizen. You cannot change that with an executive order." Bottom line: If you're a GOP candidate in a close race, you don't want your president to be inserting some random issue into the race just one week out from Election Day. Ideally, you would be doing nothing other than driving home your closing argument—as in, the one you chose. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/" title="">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181031KE1" target="_blank" title="">Still fired up? Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of both the House and Senate!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 birthrightcitizenship DonaldTrump Midterms _1808788 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 17:05:34 +0000 Pittsburgh residents stage solemn protest as Trump makes unwelcome visit https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/30/1808602/-Pittsburgh-residents-stage-solemn-protest-as-Trump-makes-unwelcome-visit Residents of the Squirrel Hill community staged a solemn protest Tuesday in opposition to Donald Trump's unwelcome visit to the Tree of Life Synagogue where 11 people were murdered Saturday in an anti-Semitic attack. Although Trump was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/politics/trump-pittsburgh-synagogue.html" target="_blank">convinced</a> by his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner to go and pay his respects, <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1057328546224500737" target="_blank">many members</a> of the Pittsburgh community, including Mayor Bill Peduto, had requested that Trump delay his visit until all 11 victims had been properly laid to rest. But such a show of selflessness, sympathy and decorum was just a little too much to ask, so Trump pushed ahead Tuesday afternoon with Melania, Ivanka, Kushner, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and chief of staff John Kelly in tow. Tellingly, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-leaders-decline-to-join-trump-in-visit-to-pittsburgh-after-massacre/2018/10/30/34709010-dc4e-11e8-aa33-53bad9a881e8_story.html?utm_term=.b3ee019b0ef6" target="_blank">not a single</a> Congressional lawmaker nor any politician joined him, <a href="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1057286061905379328" target="_blank">despite invitations</a> to Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and many others. Faced with a genuine dilemma of how to greet a sitting pr*sident who was supposedly coming to console a community ravaged by his hate speech, the local affiliate of <a href="https://twitter.com/IfNotNowPGH" target="_blank">If Not Now</a> organized an event that was <a href="https://twitter.com/juliareinstein/status/1057348448876404739" target="_blank">one part protest, one part Shiva</a>—striking a balance between honoring both the political moment and the sacred Jewish ritual of mourning the dead. As Trump arrived in Pittsburgh and descended on Tree of Life Synagogue, <a href="https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/video/3961825-thousands-gather-in-squirrel-hill-to-protest-trumps-visit/" target="_blank" title="">thousands of protesters</a> marched through the neighborhood, <a href="https://twitter.com/letsgomathias/status/1057354485067071493" target="_blank">reciting</a> the Mourner's Kaddish and singing the prayer Ozi v’Zimrat Yah (<a href="https://www.rabbishefagold.com/ozi-vzimrat-yah/" target="_blank" title="">meaning</a>, my strength balanced with the song of God will be my salvation). They carried signs with <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1057379600291057666" target="_blank" title="">messages</a> like "Hate Speech Incites Violence," "<a href="https://twitter.com/nicolefuller/status/1057360009569488896" target="_blank" title="">We Are Stronger Than Hate</a>," and "<a href="https://twitter.com/nicolefuller/status/1057360009569488896" target="_blank">Vote for Love</a>." The show of restrained solidarity was a striking contrast to all the recent GOP charges of Democratic mob-like protests. Trump went inside the synagogue vestibule for <a href="https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1057377113332944896" target="_blank" title="">nearly 20 minutes</a> before exiting <a href="https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1057377838272262145" target="_blank">to place one stone </a>and one rose bud from the White House at each of the 11 memorials staged outside. When he and his entourage finally left, marchers turned their backs on the motorcade in silent protest. Trump will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/politics/trump-pittsburgh-synagogue.html" target="_blank">now turn</a> to his final campaign push, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/29/1808285/-Trump-scraps-the-House-to-focus-his-final-campaign-push-on-the-Senate" target="_blank" title="">barnstorming eight states</a> and holding 11 rallies, starting with two in Florida on Wednesday. It's a fair bet that Trump refused to delay his visit to Pittsburgh precisely because it would have interrupted the final stretch of rage-filled rallies he depends on to feed his flagging ego. Please check out pictures and video from the protest/Shiva below. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">Want to help Democrats vote but unsure how? Try this: click here, enter your zip code, and RSVP for a volunteer shift.</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump Pittsburgh Protest TreeofLife _1808602 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:22:21 +0000 No, both sides don't do it https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/30/1808514/-No-both-sides-don-t-do-it Republicans quickly got defensive after a week in which the objects of Donald Trump's merciless derision and dehumanizing attacks became the targets of two deranged people who sought to commit carnage in service of the venom they had been fed. Over the weekend, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida tried to equate right-wing conspiracy theories to Democratic charges that Trump helped stoke the violent instincts of those who took deadly action. “Why is it so hard to accept that a clearly deranged man carried out deranged acts?" <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1056171704131768320" target="_blank" title="">Rubio tweeted</a> Saturday. "The ‘false flag’ conspiracy theories on one side & the ‘it’s Trump’s fault’ on the other shows how unhinged politics has become.” And after a Washington journalist called out Texas Sen. John Cornyn for dishonestly suggesting Nancy Pelosi incites violence against Republicans, the GOP's No. 2 in the Senate <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1056536678066782208" target="_blank">tweeted</a>: "You could say Ds on defensive after encouraging the mob scene at the Kavanaugh hearings, and Booker, Waters, Holder, Clinton comments." Just no. The protesters opposing Brett Kavanaugh didn't kill anyone and they weren't moved to action by a wildly unfounded conspiracy, nor has any Democratic official repeatedly made fear and hatred the lifeblood of their coast-to-coast rallies. No, in fact, both sides don't do it. Hillary Clinton didn't <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/?utm_term=.151bc8088552" target="_blank">launch her presidential campaign</a> on the premise that Mexicans are "rapists" and "drug dealers." (Trump) Hillary Clinton <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/07/donald-trump-ban-all-muslims-entering-us-san-bernardino-shooting" target="_blank">didn't call</a> for a "total and complete shutdown” of Muslim refugees entering the country. (Also Trump) After neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville screaming "blood and soil" and murdering a peaceful counter-protester, Democrats didn't call the Nazis "very fine people." (Still Trump) Democrats haven't run an entire midterm election strategy on a policy-free platform of hatred for immigrants, Democratic women, Jews, and the media. (In fact, Democrats have run an almost <a href="http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/releases/101818-tv/" target="_blank">entirely policy-driven campaign</a> on protecting and expanding access to health care.) The Democratic leadership PACs <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZrybJoDPE0&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop" target="_blank">in the House</a> and Senate haven't <a href="https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1057316792794787841" target="_blank">launched ads</a> depicting a menacing "caravan of illegal immigrants ... full of gang members and criminals" heading for the border. (GOP Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds) rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump Midterms Republicans _1808514 Tue, 30 Oct 2018 18:49:11 +0000 Trump scraps the House to focus his final campaign push on the Senate https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/29/1808285/-Trump-scraps-the-House-to-focus-his-final-campaign-push-on-the-Senate A quick look at Donald Trump’s final campaign itinerary tells you two things about the House: the White House likely thinks it’s a lost cause, and Trump probably can’t do anyone any good in important swing races anyway. Trump plans to scrap visits to critical House districts altogether and focus his final 11 rallies in eight states where he hopes to help shore up the Senate and give a boost to some GOP gubernatorial candidates, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-29/trump-final-election-push-skips-house-races-to-focus-on-senate" target="_blank" title="">writes</a> Bloomberg. <blockquote> The White House has grown particularly nervous in recent days about the Senate races in Florida, Missouri and Arizona -- states that a month ago they were confident Republicans would win, said an outside adviser. </blockquote> Don’t look for Trump to stop through many suburbs or even the Midwestern states that gave him the edge in 2016 like Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. His final week will mostly center around red states and areas where he hopefully won’t be a drag on any GOP House candidates: Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Check out the list below. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/" title="">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181029KE4" target="_blank" title="">Want to do more? Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of the House and Senate!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump Midterms _1808285 Mon, 29 Oct 2018 23:45:37 +0000 Trump's approvals plunge on Gallup, just like during his sick child-separation scheme https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/29/1808250/-Trump-s-approvals-plunge-on-Gallup-just-like-during-his-sick-child-separation-fiasco Donald Trump's approval ratings have a taken a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/203207/trump-job-approval-weekly.aspx" target="_blank">one-week hit on Gallup</a>, logging a 4-point drop in approval from 44 to 40 percent between Oct. 21-28. Pundits have been marveling over Trump's recent gains in approval/favorability even as Democrats's generic-ballot advantage <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/" target="_blank">held relatively steady</a> at between 8-10 points. In actuality, the two aren't always correlated. Other prognosticators have wondered how Trump's approvals could still stay relatively low given the fundamentals of the economy looking decent, such as a historically low unemployment rate, among other factors. But the last time Trump suffered such a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-approval-rating-plunges-amid-180634458.html" target="_blank" title="">precipitous 4-point drop</a> (45 - 41 percent) was from June 17-24 when Trump's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/18/a-secret-recording-captures-the-sounds-of-crying-children-separated-from-parents-at-the-border/?utm_term=.71da9ec6e156" target="_blank" title="">policy of ripping babies</a> from the arms of their parents was fully settling into America's conscience. For instance, the audio of a distraught crying baby asking for her mother was <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/children-separated-from-parents-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1529351580" target="_blank">published by ProPublica</a> on Monday, June 18. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Gallup Screenshot showing an almost identical drop in Trump" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/605229/large/Screen_Shot_2018-10-29_at_1.40.50_PM.png?1540846285"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> It was about two weeks ago on Oct. 16 when <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052183647552491521" target="_blank">Trump began tweeting </a>about the "caravan" of refugees, ramping up his fearmongering rhetoric throughout the week. “This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order and common sense,” <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/412172-trump-midterms-a-referendum-on-kavanaugh-the-caravan-law-and-order" target="_blank">Trump declared</a> on Oct. 18 at a campaign rally in Montana. Trump's disgraceful reaction to last week's bomb terrorism targeting Democratic officials and donors cannot be left out of this equation. His unconscionable tweet lamenting how "<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/26/1807420/-Trump-is-angry-all-this-Bomb-stuff-has-disrupted-his-fake-caravan-crisis" target="_blank">this 'Bomb' stuff</a>" was interrupting the GOP's momentum at the polls was among the rankest expressions of political opportunism imaginable. And by the end of the week, an absolute tragedy unfolded with the slaughter of 11 innocent people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, perhaps reinforcing to the public the venom Trump has injected into our political system. Whatever the case, Trump's preferred "caravan" crisis doesn't appear to be doing anything but hurting his approval ratings. That cannot be a welcome sign for Republicans a week out from the election. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181029KE3" target="_blank">Want to do more? Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of the House and Senate!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump Midterms _1808250 Mon, 29 Oct 2018 20:53:34 +0000 Military to deploy 5,000 troops to U.S. border as shrinking group of asylum-seeking refugees nears https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/29/1808188/-Military-to-deploy-5-000-troops-to-U-S-border-as-shrinking-group-of-asylum-seeking-refugees-nears The U.S. military expects to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-to-deploy-5-000-troops-to-southern-border-u-s-officials-say-1540820650?mod=hp_lead_pos1" target="_blank">deploy 5,000 troops</a> to the southwest U.S. border in anticipation of the arrival of a group of migrants, most of whom plan to turn themselves over to authorities and seek asylum once they reach the U.S. Initial reports suggested a deployment of closer to 1,000 active-duty troops, but Donald Trump has been hyping the arrival of the so-called "caravan" as a major election issue and clearly demanded a bigger show of force for what would otherwise be a relative non-event. "Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border," <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1056919064906469376" target="_blank">Trump tweeted</a> with zero evidence, calling it "an invasion of our Country." In fact, the group is much smaller than has been reported, consisting of <a href="https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1056858924794679296" target="_blank">closer to 3,500 migrants</a>, according to Mexico's ambassador the U.S. The military plans to send about 1,800 troops to Texas, 1,700 to Arizona and 1,500 to California, including military police, engineers, and some Marines, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-to-deploy-5-000-troops-to-southern-border-u-s-officials-say-1540820650?mod=hp_lead_pos1" target="_blank" title="">according to</a> the Wall Street Journal. The last group of Central American refugees headed for the U.S. in the spring reached about 1,500 people at its peak but only counted about one-third as many asylum seekers by the time they reached the border, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/migrant-caravan-border.html" target="_blank" title="">according to</a> the New York Times. The group was targeted with forced family separations (i.e. child kidnapping) by the Trump administration, with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/23/659988658/more-than-200-migrant-children-are-still-in-federal-custody-separated-from-famil" target="_blank" title="">around 250 of those children</a> still not reunited with their parents. <blockquote> Eric Fish, who represented several migrants in their criminal prosecutions in federal court, said that they were typically mothers, children and young men who had fled violence in their home countries at the hands of gangs or intimate partners. “It was shocking to me that they were being prosecuted when they were coming here to seek protection from horrific violence,” said Mr. Fish, a trial lawyer at the Federal Defenders of San Diego. </blockquote> This is the apparent "crisis" we are supposedly facing. Trump is a sick man to be targeting these desperate folks, who are hoping for a better life, with a show of military force intended for actual threats to the U.S. And worse yet, he is doing so purely for political gain—although thus far, his hyping of the fake "caravan" crisis for the past couple weeks <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1056915407318192128" target="_blank" title="">hasn't affected the polls at all</a>. What it did do was give one deranged anti-Semitic individual <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/robert-bowers-suspected-synagogue-shooter-believes-migrant-caravan-is-jewish-conspiracy.html" target="_blank" title="">a conspiratorial rationale</a> for going into a synagogue and slaughtering 11 innocent worshippers. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">Want to help Democrats vote but unsure how? Try this: click here, enter your zip code, and RSVP for a volunteer shift.</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181029KE2" target="_blank">Double your impact! Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of the House and Senate!</a> <div> <a name="update-1540851569000"></a> </div> <div class="live-update-wrapper" data-epoch-time="1540851569000"> <a class="live-update-link" href="#update-1540851569000"> Monday, Oct 29, 2018 · 10:19:29 PM +00:00 · Kerry Eleveld </a> <div class="live-update-content">UPDATE: Newsweek <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/migrant-caravan-us-military-troops-mexico-border-armed-1192578" target="_blank">reports</a> the military will have “up to 14,000” troops ready to deploy. Deploying with actual weapons will be 5,200 troops, who will join about 2,000 National Guard troops already at the border, for a combined force of around 7,200. What a colossal waste. </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) DonaldTrump Midterms Migrants Military Refugees _1808188 Mon, 29 Oct 2018 18:02:31 +0000 White House, lowering expectations for midterms, points fingers at everyone but Trump https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/29/1808160/-White-House-lowering-expectations-for-midterms-points-fingers-at-everyone-but-Trump Just a week out from the midterms, White House aides are acknowledging that the GOP's prospects for keeping the House are "challenging." But in classic Trumpian fashion, they're offering a host of reasons for why any election setbacks for Republicans won't be the fault of the very man who has embraced making the midterms all about himself. Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/27/trump-2018-elections-midterms-congress-943449" target="_blank">reports that a memo</a> from White House political director Bill Stepien noted the GOP's "goal this year is to minimize their losses" and then went on to pin the blame for any fallout on a series of circumstances entirely unrelated to Trump. Midterms are historically bad for the party in power, Stepien noted. Also, an unprecedented number of House Republican retirements along with eye-popping Democratic fundraising has handicapped the House effort, he argued, as if those last two factors were entirely unrelated to Trump. Meanwhile, Trump has injected himself into the midterms with gusto. In early October, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/03/trump-election-is-referendum-me-also-trump-let-me-do-an-imitation/?utm_term=.a7452ac4ef59" target="_blank">he declared</a> "I am on the ticket," and at numerous rallies he's told the crowd, "A vote for X, is a vote for me," plugging in the name of whichever GOP candidate stood beside him on stage. Trump is also planning an aggressive last-minute campaign push involving multiple rallies in critical swing states. In the Senate, however, where GOP chances of retaining power are much rosier, Stepien argued that Trump should get the lion's share of the credit. <blockquote> “The 2018 Senate map is only (potentially) favorable because of the way President Trump rewrote it in 2016,” Stepien wrote. </blockquote> Except, of course, nearly every state where Republicans stand to make gains is a solidly red state with an improbable Democratic incumbent. However Trump supposedly "rewrote" the political map in 2016 hasn't held for 2018. If it had, Republicans would have prime pickup opportunities in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and they don't. Nonetheless, this is another installment in the annals of "the buck never stops with Trump unless it's something for which he can claim credit." <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2018congress?refcode=20181029KE1" target="_blank">Still fired up? Chip in $3 to help put Democrats back in charge of the House and Senate!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump Midterms _1808160 Mon, 29 Oct 2018 16:45:00 +0000 View from the Left: In a moment of national crisis, Trump flails while the FBI thrives https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/27/1807659/-View-from-the-Left-In-a-moment-of-national-crisis-Trump-flails-while-the-FBI-thrives Something menacing was happening this week and Donald Trump wanted America to know that he was right on top of it. Bombs intended for Trump's political opponents were being discovered on a daily basis, but that wasn't the real national emergency, according to Trump. The "<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1055414972635926528" target="_blank">National Emergency</a>" Trump was concocting was going to unfold at some point several weeks away on the nation's southwest border when a group of several thousand desperate refugees attempt to turn themselves over to American authorities and claim asylum in the U.S. On Thursday night, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/us/politics/trump-army-border-mexico.html" target="_blank">reported</a> Trump was hatching plans to send as many as 1,000-active duty U.S. troops to the border to prevent the asylum seekers from entering. It's nothing but <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/26/1807420/-Trump-is-angry-all-this-Bomb-stuff-has-disrupted-his-fake-caravan-crisis" target="_blank">a political stunt</a>—red meat for his rabidly anti-immigrant base. But his rush to action for an event that likely won’t even unfold before the Nov. 6 election stood in stark contrast to the wanting sense of urgency Trump displayed for the real crisis at hand. When the bomb-inspired domestic terrorist threat first started pulsing through the media on Wednesday morning, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/24/1806875/-After-Trump-spent-a-week-hyping-fake-caravan-crisis-he-goes-mute-on-bomb-scare" target="_blank">Trump went mum</a> for more than six hours, except to retweet the sentiments of Vice President Mike Pence condemning the attacks targeting the Clintons, the Obamas, and other Democratic officials and boosters. "I agree wholeheartedly!" Trump exclaimed. Never mind that Trump practically <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806707/--There-s-no-proof-of-anything-Trump-admits-his-migrant-Middle-Easterners-were-pure-fantasy" target="_blank">tweets in real time</a> while he's watching conspiracy theories being spun on Fox News, such as the notion that there were "<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806707/--There-s-no-proof-of-anything-Trump-admits-his-migrant-Middle-Easterners-were-pure-fantasy" target="_blank">Middle Easterners</a>" in the group of Central American migrants heading for the U.S.-Mexico border. (There aren't, but Trump tweeted the lie out as fact anyway as Fox News hosts theorized there could be.) After handcuffing his thumbs for the duration of Wednesday morning and early afternoon, Trump devoted all of a couple minutes to a call for civility at the beginning of a pre-planned White House event on opioid addiction. "Acts or threats of political violence have no place in the United States," <a href="https://www.apnews.com/ac1c20b392e6405daca649602bba0e4c" target="_blank">he said</a>, with at least some amount of decorum. But by his Wednesday night rally in Wisconsin, Trump graduated to having a little fun with topic, as if people's lives weren't on the line. Though he toned down some of his most biting lines about his political opponents, he also congratulated himself for doing so. “And by the way, do you see how nice I am behaving tonight?” <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/24/trump-national-unity-suspicious-packages-938358" target="_blank">he said to giggles</a> from the crowd, like he was trying out a new schtick on a Comedy Zone tour. "Have you ever seen this? We’re all behaving very well." But frankly, even joking about the death threats was a little too civilized for Trump. He had to point fingers at someone other than himself and his <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/24/1807010/-Trump-evoked-a-vision-of-American-carnage-then-he-made-it-come-true" target="_blank">constant savaging of his political opponents</a> as "evil" traitors to the nation. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Bombs CNN DonaldTrump Media ViewFromTheLeft _1807659 Sat, 27 Oct 2018 18:00:37 +0000 Trump's 'this Bomb stuff' tweet gets even worse https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/26/1807493/-Trump-s-this-Bomb-stuff-tweets-gets-even-worse When Donald Trump sent out a tweet early Friday morning trivializing a life-threatening national crisis as nothing more than “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1055826295337172993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1055826295337172993&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2018%2F10%2F26%2F1807420%2F-Trump-is-angry-all-this-Bomb-stuff-has-disrupted-his-fake-caravan-crisis" target="_blank">this ‘Bomb’ stuff</a>,” the abhorrent tweet may have been even worse than it originally seemed. Not only was Trump fanning the flames of a conspiracy theory that the bombs were some sort of hoax intended to boost sympathy for Democrats, he appears to have done so after he had already been briefed about the leads the FBI were following that quickly led them to Florida suspect Cesar Sayoc Jr. As former Justice Department spokesperson Matthew Miller noted on MSNBC, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday that the FBI had identified Sayoc by Thursday night. <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;Based on Wray’s remarks, the FBI had identified Sayoc by late last night. Surely they briefed the WH immediately. Might explain Trump’s losing it on Twitter at 3:14 am.&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/matthewamiller/status/1055898146096713728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;October 26, 2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt; '><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Based on WrayÃ¢Â€Â™s remarks, the FBI had identified Sayoc by late last night. Surely they briefed the WH immediately. Might explain TrumpÃ¢Â€Â™s losing it on Twitter at 3:14 am.— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewamiller/status/1055898146096713728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2018</a></blockquote> </div> At the press conference announcing the arrest, Wray <a href="https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1055904015450546176" target="_blank">declined to say</a> when exactly Trump had been briefed. White House officials also <a href="http://www.dailypress.com/la-na-pol-suspicious-packages-20181026-story.html" target="_blank">dodged the timing question</a>. <blockquote> White House officials would not say whether Trump’s briefing came before or after the president fired off a tweet about the case that downplayed the seriousness of the case... </blockquote> Miller pointed out that Wray’s answer to the question alone was unusual because the response at such a briefing almost always entails something along the lines of, We briefed the president right away. But in this case no one wants to say exactly when Trump knew. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Bombs BombStuff ChristopherWray DonaldTrump Recommended _1807493 Fri, 26 Oct 2018 20:17:01 +0000 New poll shreds GOP's entire doctrine of financing tax cuts for rich by stealing from everyone else https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/26/1807487/-New-poll-shreds-GOP-s-entire-doctrine-of-financing-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-by-stealing-from-the-poor An NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/26/660670687/poll-trump-seen-as-important-factor-in-americans-vote-as-democrats-open-up-lead" target="_blank">released Friday</a> offered virtually nothing but bad news for Republicans, the worst of which centers around the tax cuts they passed for the nation's wealthiest. Not only do <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2018/10/25/polling-shows-why-trump-is-trying-a-new-tax-message/" target="_blank">more Americans consistently oppose</a> the law than support it—with most also saying <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/25/1807323/-Poll-Majority-of-Americans-say-their-financial-situation-hasn-t-improved-since-Trump-took-office" target="_blank">they haven't benefitted</a> from it—a strong majority of registered voters prefers to roll back the cuts in order to shore up the nation's ballooning deficit. Fully 60 percent of registered voters said "it was better to roll back the tax cuts passed by Congress than to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," according to NPR. That number includes a plurality of Republicans: <ul> <li>Reverse tax cut: 43 percent</li> <li>Cut SS/Medicare/Medicaid: 32 percent</li> </ul> And strong majorities of both Democrats (80 percent) and independents (58 percent) favor reversing the tax cuts to cutting social programs. In the strongest possible terms, this poll shreds the GOP's entire economic doctrine of financing tax cuts for the richest Americans by stealing from the nation's neediest to shore up the deficit. The revelation comes on the heels of GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/17/1805164/-Democrats-pounce-as-McConnell-lobbies-for-cuts-to-Social-Security-Medicare-and-Medicaid" target="_blank">pitch last week</a> for making cuts to the critical programs just last week in order to reduce the deficit/debt, both of which have ballooned due to the GOP tax law. On the midterm front, the poll also included troubling news for Republicans that might either prove to be an outlier or could perhaps foreshadow a shift toward Democrats. <ul> <li>Despite recent news that Trump's approval rating is peaking, his approvals in the NPR poll dropped to 39 percent, down from 41 percent in the same poll earlier this month</li> <li>Democrats also expanded their lead over Republicans in the poll’s generic ballot to 10 points, 50-40 percent, a sizable increase from the their 6-point lead earlier this month</li> </ul> The poll was conducted Oct. 21-23, so well after Trump began plugging the supposed "caravan" crises but before the real scope of the “MAGA bomber” crisis had unfolded. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) 2018 DonaldTrump GOPTaxLaw Midterms NPR Recommended _1807487 Fri, 26 Oct 2018 19:17:52 +0000 Trump is angry all this 'Bomb stuff' has disrupted his fake 'caravan' crisis https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/26/1807420/-Trump-is-angry-all-this-Bomb-stuff-has-disrupted-his-fake-caravan-crisis Donald Trump has a habit of hearing something and then spewing out his gut reaction on Twitter, and here’s part of what spilled out Friday morning. <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this “Bomb” stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1055826295337172993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;October 26, 2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt; '><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this Ã¢Â€ÂœBombÃ¢Â€Â stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1055826295337172993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2018</a></blockquote> </div> Let’s start with the obvious—this tweet is the despicable work of a sociopath casting a life-threatening national crisis as political victimhood. But let’s focus for a second on what Trump’s unconscionable stream of consciousness is revealing: Trump’s political people aren’t giving him happy news at the moment and he wants Republicans to “go out and vote!” Trump was clearly seething about being knocked off his fake crisis message about the “caravan” of several thousand refugees. That’s the message Trump hoped would drive the day. “To those in the Caravan, turnaround, we are not letting people into the United States illegally,” Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1055527191235227648" target="_blank" title="">tweeted</a> Thursday afternoon. Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/us/politics/trump-army-border-mexico.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank" title="">apparent plan</a> to seal off the nation’s southern border using as many as 1,000 active-duty U.S. troops just happened to make its way to the New York Times Thursday night, fresh for Friday morning consumption. The report appropriately framed the initiative as a cynical political ploy to gin up Trump’s base. <blockquote> The effort would be the starkest indication yet of Mr. Trump’s election-season push to play to his anti-immigrant base as his party fights to keep control of Congress. </blockquote> But then on Friday morning several more <a href="https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1055805273636569089" target="_blank" title="">explosive devices</a> were <a href="https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1055807103720402944" target="_blank" title="">discovered</a>, once again targeting Trump’s political opponents. How inconvenient for him. This “Bomb’ stuff” is really throwing Trump off his game. And his game is manufacturing the fake crisis of his choosing solely for political purposes, rather than actually trying to hold the country together in a moment of genuine crisis. rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Bombs DonaldTrump MAGAbomber Refugees _1807420 Fri, 26 Oct 2018 17:02:50 +0000 Poll: Majority of Americans say their financial situation hasn't improved since Trump took office https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/25/1807323/-Poll-Majority-of-Americans-say-their-financial-situation-hasn-t-improved-since-Trump-took-office One of the reasons the tax cut for the rich hasn't sold well on the campaign trail is because it wasn't designed to do much for most Americans and, guess what? It didn't according to a poll released this week by Bankrate. The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/news/412883-poll-majority-of-americans-say-their-financial-situation-hasnt-improved-since" target="_blank" title="">writes</a>: <blockquote> Of those surveyed, 17 percent said they were worse off now than two years ago and 45 percent said their situation has not changed. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said their finances have improved. </blockquote> Huh, so 38 percent think they're better off. Does that percentage sound familiar to anyone? But more importantly, that means 62 percent of Americans feel their financial situation either hasn't changed or has actually gotten worse while the GOP ran the federal government. Gee, if only Republicans had thought about anybody but the one percent while they were legislating, maybe they could have actually run on their tax cut. Instead they’ve spent the campaign running from it. <a href="https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/dailykos/" title="">GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races!</a> rss@dailykos.com (Kerry Eleveld) Midterms TaxLaw _1807323 Fri, 26 Oct 2018 04:37:52 +0000