Clyburn, Schiff endorse Eliot Engel ahead of competitive primary

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Rep. Adam Schiff are endorsing Rep. Eliot Engel, the pair of Democratic heavyweights offering their full support as the embattled New Yorker fights to hold onto the seat he’s represented for more than three decades.

Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, and Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have considerable influence within Democratic politics. Both men praised Engel for his longtime service to his Bronx district and tenure as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in statements exclusively obtained by POLITICO on Sunday.

“Let me be blunt: We need leaders in Congress with proven records of standing up for civil and human rights,” said Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress. “Eliot Engel is not new to the fight for justice and equality — he's been in the fight his entire life, and I have worked with him on these issues for almost three decades.”

Clyburn's support comes as Democrats prepare to move a police reform bill through the House this month, sweeping legislation that’s been offered in response to the national outcry over the police killing of George Floyd. Engel is an original sponsor of the police reform bill.

Schiff, the lead prosecutor in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, said Engel’s leadership as Foreign Affairs Committee chairman was “invaluable” during Democrats’ investigation into whether the president abused the power of his office.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn of S.C., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill Thursday, April 30, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

“Ever since Trump took office, Eliot has helped expose the abuses of his administration, and hold this lawless president accountable,” Schiff continued. “Eliot is a dedicated and talented public servant who knows how to get things done for the people of his district, while working diligently to protect our democracy. He has my full support for his reelection.”

Their endorsements come one day after another prominent lawmaker, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), announced he was endorsing Engel as well. Jeffries served alongside Schiff as an impeachment manager.

But it’s unclear if the cadre of powerful Democrats will be enough to save Engel, who faces off against middle school principal Jamaal Bowman on June 23.

The support of Clyburn and Jeffries, two senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus, is especially notable after the CBC’s political arm came under fire for supporting Engel, who is white, over Bowman, who is black.

Senior members of the CBC have defended the decision, citing Engel’s longtime tenure, representing his district for 31 years. The CBC is a fierce defender of seniority within the House Democratic Caucus and has in the past endorsed white incumbents over black primary challengers.

“During the South Carolina primary several months ago, I endorsed our party's presumptive nominee, Joe Biden for President, because of his long and distinguished record of standing with us,” Clyburn said in a statement. “The same goes for Eliot Engel.”

But Bowman has racked up his own string of high-profile endorsements, including from progressive leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district borders Engel’s. The New York Times — Engel’s hometown newspaper — endorsed Bowman over the weekend, another blow to the longtime lawmaker.

And Engel has had multiple missteps in recent weeks, drawing unwanted attention to himself and giving his opponent plenty of fodder in the run-up to the primary.

Engel came under fire last month after the Atlantic reported he was hunkered down in his Washington-area home as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged his district — particularly New Rochelle, one of the hardest-hit areas in the country and ground zero for the outbreak in New York.

Engel has since traveled back to his district. But two weeks ago, Engel triggered another round of bad headlines when he was caught on a hot mic as he pressed to speak at a press conference in his district. After being rebuffed by Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr., Engel tried again, saying, “If I didn't have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”

Jeffries defended Engel in his endorsement over the weekend, telling the New York Daily News that “an inartful statement” shouldn’t undo Engel’s three decades of “committed compassionate on-the-ground service to the community."

The race has become something of a proxy war between the Democratic establishment — most of which is lined up firmly behind Engel — and insurgents like Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats, a progressive group that is backing Bowman.

Ocasio-Cortez shot to fame after unseating Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), then the House Democratic Caucus chairman, in a stunning upset in 2018. Ocasio-Cortez was also backed by Justice Democrats, which has drawn the ire of senior Democratic lawmakers for it practice of targeting longtime incumbents.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who could face his own progressive challenger in 2022, declined to endorse Engel earlier this week. But most Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have publicly supported Engel in recent weeks.

“Chairman Engel is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He also has unique privilege, which is unique and it wouldn’t happen again ... he is also not only the chairman of Foreign Affairs, he is a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee,” Pelosi told reporters last week.

“That wouldn’t happen again — that’s a lot of power,” Pelosi added.

Posted in Uncategorized

What will 2020 elections be about? Impeachment, pandemic, George Floyd death by June leaves door wide open

It’s only mid-June. And we don’t really know what may define the November elections.

Supreme Court could force Congress into battle over Dreamers

In what is already one of the most turbulent years in Washington, Congress could soon be staring down another crisis — the possible deportation of 700,000 Dreamers.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on the fate of an Obama-era program to shield undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, delivering a jolt to Washington amid a global pandemic and historic unrest over the killing of African Americans at the hands of police.

A Supreme Court decision necessitating Congress to act would add another monstrous task to its to-do list this year, while also thrusting lawmakers into one of the thorniest political debates just months before they, and President Donald Trump, are on the ballot.

Many lawmakers from both parties say they support the popular “Dreamers” program, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which has been in legal limbo since Trump’s attempt to ax it in 2017. But they are also openly skeptical that Congress could, on top of everything, finally clinch a deal on immigration reform.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who has long advocated immigration reform, predicted Congress would do nothing if the high court struck down the program. That would make hundreds of thousands of people in the DACA program subject to deportation if the White House and Trump don’t step in.

"Not with this McConnell Senate. It's unlikely that we will do anything to help these young people,” Durbin said, referring to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said any DACA fix should be accompanied by broader reforms.

It could hardly be a busier election year for Democrats and Republicans, and there’s no sign of it letting up. In the coming weeks, Congress’ agenda includes a potential police reform bill and negotiations over the next — and potentially final — major coronavirus relief package. That’s on top of funding the government and approving a must-pass defense spending measure.

“We’ve had a lot of stuff thrown into our lap since I’ve been here,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who has supported border wall money but said he needs to study DACA more. “I think there was a thing called impeachment and then the coronavirus and then police reform so, I guess we can handle this as well but I think it would really be a big issue thrown among many others.”

The Supreme Court could leave Congress with a wide range of options. It could overturn the protections for “Dreamers” immediately, phase it out over time, or perhaps require additional regulatory steps from the Trump administration.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., talks to reporters as he walks to attend the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

If the court sends the issue back to Congress to fix with a deadline, many lawmakers say it could actually force party leaders to come to the table.

"We’re hoping for the best, but with the court, they can obviously come down either way. We’re prepared whatever the decision is," Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in an interview, pointing to the Democrats' existing legislation.

But, he added, the politics won't be pretty: "The White House tries to use everything as leverage, tries to exploit any situation. We expect that."

“I have learned in my time in Congress, Congress always does best when there’s a deadline,” added retiring Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), a centrist House Republican who has spent years fighting for a DACA fix.

The pressure for swift action, Hurd argued, would be immense if the court does knock out DACA. Recent polling by CBS showed that 85 percent of people support allowing immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to stay, including 73 percent of Republicans.

“If the Supreme Court decides that DACA is unconstitutional, what happens to those 700,000 young men and women? What happens to them, and how much time does Congress have to try to create a permanent legislative fix?” said Hurd, whose majority Hispanic district borders Mexico.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) conceded in an interview that broader immigration reform is a reach, particularly in an election year. But Graham, who has long supported overhauling the country’s immigration laws, said Congress can still act on issues like border security and visas in the near term, and emphasized that DACA recipients need certainty.

“I don’t think you’re going to get comprehensive immigration reform, but I think there’s a ‘mini-deal’ to be had and people are looking for outcomes,” Graham said, who has not recently spoken to the White House about the issue. “I’m hoping we sit down with the president and find a mini-package ... I’m willing to try, but it’s going to take everybody else willing to try and time will tell.”

Wearing a face mask to reduce the chance of transmission of the novel coronavirus, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) leaves the U.S. Capitol following a vote May 18, 2020 in Washington, DC. The Senate is back in session during the COVID pandemic for a procedural vote on the nomination of Scott Rash to serve as federal district judge in Arizona. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

House Democrats say there’s a simple solution — for the Senate to take up their bill from last June to permanently extend the program. That bill, approved largely along party lines, was the most significant immigration bill to pass either chamber in six years, though it has since languished in the upper chamber.

Senate Republicans have said they’re willing to consider a legislative fix, but many in the caucus are also calling for a serious effort to crack down on unauthorized immigration more broadly. And they want to see reforms to visas for foreign workers.

“I do believe it would be important for us to resolve the DACA issue for those young people that are facing continued uncertainty,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who belongs to the Senate GOP’s moderate wing. “I also believe that we need to decide how we’re going to deal with the 11 million or so that are here illegally and I hope that we improve our legal system of immigration.”

But Romney added: “Whether we’re going to pass something in an election year on that topic is I think an unlikely scenario.”

The task of reaching consensus is made more difficult by Senate Republicans' insistence that Trump give his blessing before any bill goes forward. The Trump presidency has had several flirtations with Congress on immigration policy — including two government shutdowns related to the subject — but so far nothing has come to fruition.

And Democrats are still stinging over Trump’s rejection of bipartisan legislation in 2018 that would have provided $25 billion for border security in exchange for protecting DACA recipients and their parents. Last year, Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to the president and his son-in-law, tried and failed to find a bipartisan deal on asylum laws with Durbin and Graham.

During a March meeting, Trump told a group of GOP senators at the White House he wanted to wait until after the Supreme Court ruled on DACA before pursuing additional immigration reform.

Since then, Trump has publicly and privately suggested that if the court does rule in his favor, he plans to dangle the fate of the DACA program in front of Democrats in hopes of striking a broader immigration deal this summer.

"I hope that Lindsey, who actually worked with Dick Durbin to come up with a bipartisan bill, ... would be able to marshal the commitment to support the DACA participants," said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). "However you never know with the Republicans."

House Democrats say they’re already bracing for a scenario in which they’ll be forced to bargain with Trump.

“I’m hoping the Supreme Court does the right thing, but if not, then we have to work with the Trump administration,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), whose southern Texas district borders Mexico.

But Cuellar also acknowledged that Congress already has a lot on its plate, rattling off spending bills, coronavirus relief, a defense policy bill and a surface transportation bill.

“The calendar is so full,” Cuellar said, adding that the House’s new voting procedures to protect members’ health in the ongoing pandemic has dramatically slowed down the process of voting. “It just takes a long time to get things done.”

Melanie Zanona contributed to this report.

Posted in Uncategorized

Journalism 101 fail: NYT article lets Republicans lie and attack, but can’t find Democrat to respond

What the hell is going on at The New York Times? This question has arisen far too often in the past few years, most recently last week after James Bennet, the paper’s now-former editorial page editor, pitched and then published—without reading it first, allegedly—a fascist op-ed by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. They were rightly reamed for it, with their own 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner and "The 1619 Project" creator Nikole Hannah-Jones leading the way, saying, “As a black woman, as a journalist, as an American, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this.".

So that was a poor decision by the opinion department, but surely the folks in the Times’ news department are doing their level best and practicing solid journalism, right? They’ve learned the hard and necessary lessons from the absurdly irresponsible, obsessive way they covered “her emails” in 2016, while downplaying investigations and actual wrongdoing by The Man Who Ended Up Losing The Popular Vote, right?

Well, from what I saw in a recent Sunday edition, not so much.

Like so many New York stories, we must begin in Central Park. I was sitting on the Great Lawn—appropriately distanced from a few friends, of course—and reading the Sunday Times news section when I started muttering. Then I humphed. Then I just slapped the newspaper with the back of my hand and said, “Sorry to interrupt, guys, but you gotta hear this.”

The article that prompted my outburst was one that I initially figured would be pretty dull. “Trump Wanted a Pre-Virus Convention Crowd, or None At All,” was the print headline (it’s slightly different online). The piece focused on Trump’s threat to move the Republican National Convention from Charlotte, North Carolina (we now know that most of the convention activities, including the nomination acceptance speech, will take place in Jacksonville, Florida). The story focused on the impeached president’s dismay with the Tar Heel State’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who wouldn’t guarantee that Republicans could pack people together on the convention floor and party like it was 2019.

The article’s first quote came from Ada Fisher, a national committeewoman for North Carolina’s Republican Party. Unsurprisingly, she blamed Democrats. “There are a lot of liberal, establishment people here who just don’t like the Republican Party. People didn’t want it to happen just because Republicans were involved. But Charlotte can’t stand to lose $200 million in revenue right now.” Standard Republican boilerplate: The Democrats are a bunch of meanies. She even managed to work in both “liberal” and “establishment” as slurs. Well played, Ms. Fisher.

The next quote was from Orange Julius Caesar himself, who’d informed Cooper how stupendously North Carolina had been treated by the White House; he’d sent lots of tests and ventilators, see, as well as the National Guard. “I think we’ve done a good job!” and “We gave you a lot!” and more of the same. About what you’d expect from Trump.

Republican National Committee chair Ronna (don’t call me Romney) McDaniel’s letter to the convention’s host committee was next; essentially, she blamed the Democrats. If you’re wondering if, at any point in this journey so far, the Times offered any response from North Carolina Democrats, you already know the answer to that.

Two more Republicans weighed in before the final quotes came from the Republican state chair from Connecticut, J.R. Romano, who criticized Gov. Cooper’s supposedly over-aggressive requirements regarding wearing masks and social distancing: “We’re adults,” Romano said. “We all know the risks. If someone wants to wear a face mask, they can. If someone doesn’t, they’re taking a risk. I don’t think they had to make this mandatory.”

It is worth noting that Thursday was the fourth day in a row that coronavirus hospitalizations in North Carolina hit a new high.

I couldn’t believe that Romano’s nonsense was the end of the article. I kept waiting for the pushback, a quote from Cooper, or one his aides or allies, about the need to be careful because of the virus, or how decisions on the convention would be governed by science, or how they’d have to see how the outbreak looks in the coming weeks, or that they’d love to host the Republicans, but social distancing rules will still probably be necessary. Anything along those lines would’ve worked. Anything.

Could the authors really not find a Democrat in the entire state or country to go on record here? How did they submit this piece without making sure they at least found one? Did they even notice the imbalance? Where were their editors? There are multiple layers of editorial oversight, one would imagine, for an article on national politics that runs in the main print section of the Sunday New York Times. Did nobody ask, “Hey, can you find a quote from a frickin’ Democrat?” I’ve never worked as an editor at the Gray Lady, but that question came to mind before I was halfway through the piece.

The article did summarize the respective positions of Cooper and Trump, as well as their conversations, yet only Trump and Republicans were given space to defend their positions. Republicans’ assertions about the motivations of North Carolina Democrats also went unchallenged by the authors, other than a brief mention—far from any Republican statements—that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended mask-wearing and social distancing.

The article was written by Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman. While Karni has not faced significant criticism over her work in the past, Haberman has been called out before for pro-Trump, pro-Republican reporting. Trump has also attacked Haberman, but given that he has attacked the entire journalism profession, such attacks are a badge of honor and don’t mean anyone’s actually been unfair to him or his administration. Haberman’s critics maintain the opposite.

In May 2019, Haberman wrote an article for the Times about Hope Hicks, who had left her position as White House communications director a year earlier, then received a subpoena to testify before the House regarding her former boss and obstruction of justice (remember the Mueller report?). Haberman’s article explored whether Hicks would, you know, actually comply with the law. Yet some folks were concerned that the decision to commit a crime was framed, by Haberman, as “an existential question.”

What gets me is news breaks that this woman is weighing committing a crime before Congress &it�s getting framed by the NYT as some Lifetime drama called �Hope�s Choice.� This is a fmr admin official considering participating in a coverup led by the President. Treat her equally. https://t.co/XcNbSuU4QB

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 26, 2019

Anyway: Here's a dare for @maggieNYT, since she wants to write about what happens when women defy a subpoena. Write a similar story about @xychelsea, who is in jail for defying a subpoena.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 26, 2019

There is nothing for Hope Hicks to �decide.� She got a subpoena from Congress. Were she not white, wealthy, and connected, we wouldn�t be having this conversation. She would appear, or she would face the threat of prison like the rest of us. As she should. https://t.co/giDCcvIxvf

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 26, 2019

One Vanity Fair headline referred to Haberman as a “Trump Whisperer,” citing her “closeness—and fairness—to the president.” Fairness is a subjective term, but I have a hard time seeing it as fair to Roy Cooper or North Carolina Democrats that Haberman and Karni’s article quoted five angry Republicans, but not one Democrat.

Beyond the problems with Haberman’s reporting specifically, one of the biggest problems with the so-called mainstream media writ large is something called “bothsidesism,” also known as false equivalency. Bothsidesism occurs when reporters cover an issue simply by presenting the opposing views of Democrats and Republicans as equivalent, irrespective of which side is telling the truth.

Laila Lalami, writing in in The Nation, describes bothsidesism as when journalists “give space to both sides of any story, no matter what the facts show, leaving them open to manipulation by surrogates acting in bad faith and, more worrying, making it harder for ordinary citizens to remain informed and engaged.” Nancy LeTourneau, writing for Washington Monthly, notes that “For those of us who are trying to keep the door to being open-minded cracked at least a little bit, this both-siderism has a kind of gaslighting effect. You begin to question whether what you are witnessing with your own two eyes is real.”

At the Columbia Journalism Review, Jon Allsop went in-depth on bothsidesism and the Times during the impeachment of Donald Trump.

As impeachment has progressed, attacks on the “both sides” approach—and the Times, in particular—have intensified. Over the weekend, critics trained their ire on an article in the paper, headlined “The Breach Widens as Congress Nears a Partisan Impeachment,” about a debate in the Judiciary Committee. Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight, noted that the actual words “both sides” appeared four times in the piece. (One of these was in a quotation.) Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, listed 12 more snippets from the article as evidence of the Times’s inability to handle what he calls “asymmetrical polarization.” They included “the different impeachment realities that the two parties are living in,” “both sides engaged in a kind of mutually assured destruction,” and “the two parties could not even agree on a basic set of facts in front of them.”

Rosen is right that this sort of language is inadequate: Democrats, for the most part, are engaging with the factual record; Republicans, for the most part, are not. These positions are manifestly not equivalent. Treating them as such does not serve any useful concept of fairness; instead, it rebounds clearly to the advantage of the one side (Republicans) for whom nonsense being taken seriously is a victory in itself. The Times is far from the only culprit.

The Times also blew it when covering Trump’s remarks after back-to-back mass shootings in August 2019—one of which was carried out by a racist who specifically targeted Latinx Americans. The initial headline—in all caps (something done relatively rarely, as it indicates special importance)—read “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM.” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, among many others, pushed back hard on that framing.

Lives literally depend on you doing better, NYT. Please do. https://t.co/L4CpCb8zLi

— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) August 6, 2019

After facing a lot of heat, the headline was changed to “ASSAILING HATE BUT NOT GUNS.” A spokesperson for the Times admitted that “The headline was bad and has been changed for the second edition.” Executive editor Dean Baquet also called it a “bad headline.” The final headline, at least online, reads: “Trump Condemns White Supremacy but Stops Short of Major Gun Controls.” The Confederacy’s Biggest Fan, of course, still liked the original headline best, calling it “the correct description” of what he’d said.

What mattered, in the context of the mass shootings, was that Trump had declared a refusal to support any significant new gun control measures, such as universal background checks, or bans on high capacity ammunition magazines. However, the Times’  first instinct was to praise Trump as an anti-racist unifier. Let that choice sink in.

It’s bad enough when reporters at mainstream media outlets are so afraid of being accused of showing “liberal bias” that they engage in bothsidesism and false equivalency. Regarding the Sunday Times article about the RNC, presenting both sides would have been an improvement, as the authors literally only gave us one side of a political story in which Democrats and Republicans disagreed. Yet what the article on the battle over the RNC convention shares with other New York Times pieces that are guilty of bothsidesism is the willingness to bend over backward to help Republicans. And they call that paper the liberal media.

There are no quick fixes here for The Times. As for constructive criticism, journalists at The Times could do a lot worse than to listen to the aforementioned Professor Rosen. Rosen diagnosed the crux of the paper’s problem a couple of years ago (and is as good a media critic as there is), in a long analysis that’s worth reading. One quote in particular hits the nail on the head.

“Remember when the Washington Post came out with its new motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness?” It put Post journalism on the side of keeping democracy alive. Dean Baquet, executive editor of the Times, made fun of it. ‘Sounds like the next Batman movie,’ he said.”

You know what they say about the fish rotting from the head down? Perhaps the entire staff, top to bottom, could undergo the kind of training they did at The Telegraph (UK), which Rosen also cited as a way to help mainstream media journalists unlearn some of their worst habits.

To paraphrase Ted “Theodore” Logan, strange things are afoot at The New York Times, and not at all in the cool, “I just met George Carlin outside the Circle K” kind of way. In all seriousness, what The Times did here is reflective of what’s been going on for generations. In 1969, Vice President Spiro Agnew drew up the playbook for Republican liars attacking the media in order to intimidate them into providing more favorable coverage; the Koch brothers have kept that tradition alive. In sports, this is called “working the refs,” and Paul Krugman rightly applied the term to the imbalance in how the media covered Trump as compared to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

To the detriment of American politics, the American people, and our democracy, we’ve had four more years of this media malpractice since then. If mainstream media outlets keep this up, and we end up with four more of Trump as a result, there may not be much of a free media left to cover his second term. It’s on all of us to do our part between now and November to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Ian Reifowitz is the author of  The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)

Ukraine alleges $5 million bribe over Burisma, no Biden link

Ukraine alleges $5 million bribe over Burisma, no Biden linkUkrainian officials on Saturday said they were offered $5 million in bribes to end a probe into energy company Burisma's founder, but said there was no connection to former board member Hunter Biden whose father is running for the U.S. presidency. The Ukrainian company was thrust into the global spotlight last year in the impeachment inquiry into whether U.S. President Donald Trump improperly pressured Kiev into opening a case against his rival for the November election race. Trump wants an investigation into the Democrats' 2020 candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son.


Posted in Uncategorized

John Cusack Outrageously Claims Military Has ‘Abandoned’ Trump: Says Supporters He Still Has Are Racist

The radically liberal actor John Cusack had yet another unhinged meltdown stemming from Donald Trump and his supporters. In a deranged tweet that was full of typos, Cusack claimed that the president is “playing for an exit strategy” and that the only supporters he has left are racist.

“Trump is playing for an exit strategy—that keeps him from jail- miltary [sic] has abandoned his fascism—all he’s got left is rascists [sic]- He wants something to leverage – to stay out of jail,” Cusack tweeted, noticeably misspelling the words “military” and “racists.”

In another tweet today, Cusack called Trump a “bloated punk,” which just goes to show how deep his hatred for the president runs.

Cusack’s Twitter page is full of disturbing meltdowns against Trump and those who voted for him, indicating all-consuming hatred for the president equivalent to many of his Hollywood cohorts. Back in March, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Cusack called for another impeachment effort against Trump, saying it was necessary to “save lives.”

“We need strikes /  and we need to remove trump from power to save lives Impeach him again / Pressure for 25th,” he tweeted on March 31.

All Cusack is accomplishing with these tweets is showing the world that he is just another Hollywood liberal elitist who has lost all touch with reality.

This piece was written by PopZette Staff on June 13, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Barr says big Democrat fish may be hooked in Durham probe
Derek Chauvin and George Floyd knew each other and ‘bumped heads,’ says former coworker at nightclub
Biden surrogate Terry McAuliffe slips up, caught on camera saying campaign prefers Biden stay ‘in the basement’

The post John Cusack Outrageously Claims Military Has ‘Abandoned’ Trump: Says Supporters He Still Has Are Racist appeared first on The Political Insider.

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”

Jamelle Bouie/NY times:

To Overturn Trump, We Need to Overturn White Supremacy

For that to happen, some monuments — and the historical myths they supported — are going to have to come down.

Another way to put this observation is that police brutality, the proximate cause of these protests, is simply an acute instance of the many ways in which the lives of black Americans (and other groups) are degraded and devalued. And while the most consequential form this degradation takes are material — the Covid-19 crisis, for example, has revealed to many Americans the extent to which black lives are still shaped by a deep racial inequality that leaves them disproportionately vulnerable to illness and premature death — there are also many symbolic statements of black worth, or the lack thereof, out there for all to see.

It’s not overreach, it’s overdue.

Great chart from @aedwardslevy on opinion on police reforms. https://t.co/tv5ukAHOVJ pic.twitter.com/bBGGaRFMPw

— Natalie Jackson (@nataliemj10) June 12, 2020

Andrea Benjamin/WaPo:

Polls show strong support for the protests — and also for how police handled them

Americans have a history of supporting causes in the abstract, then retreating.

Beyond the direct expression of outrage, one purpose of protests is to sway public opinion. By that standard, the demonstrations against police violence that followed the killing of George Floyd in police custody appear to have been successful — at least by some measures: A Washington Post-Schar School poll released this past week found that 69 percent of Americans think Floyd’s killing signals a broader problem within law enforcement, compared with 29 percent who consider it to be an isolated incident.

That represents a significant change from 2014, when a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 43 percent of Americans felt that the killing of unarmed African American men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City signified a broader problem (compared with 51 percent who thought they were isolated affairs). The new Post-Schar School poll also found that a large majority of Americans, 74 percent, generally back the protests — a trend that extended even to Republicans, 53 percent of whom support them. Echoing other commentators, Slate said the polling suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement “has made staggering gains in just two weeks.”

There may be reasons for optimism among those who, like me, believe strongly in curbing police violence, but we should also be cautious in interpreting the polls. Declarations of a revolution in American consciousness are premature. For one thing, polls also reveal that a surprisingly high proportion of people thought that police behaved reasonably in response to the protests — despite the footage of the violent clearing of Lafayette Square, the shooting of journalists with pepper guns and the countless baton-beatings that police dished out.

John, we begged you to testify in impeachment. We tried everything, right up until the very last minute of the trial. You persistently refused. Now you want us to feel sorry for you & buy your book? Forget it. #BoycottBolton https://t.co/6jbbdKOIOV

— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) June 12, 2020

Reuters:

Most Americans, including Republicans, support sweeping Democratic police reform proposals - Reuters/Ipsos poll

The poll (here) conducted online of 1,113 U.S. adults showed bipartisan support for many of the Democrats' proposals.

For example, 82% of Americans want to ban police from using chokeholds, 83% want to ban racial profiling, and 92% want federal police to be required to wear body cameras.

It also found that 89% of Americans want to require police to give the people they stop their name, badge number and reason for the stop, and 91% support allowing independent investigations of police departments that show patterns of misconduct.

Lots of support for various reforms that would save lives and improve America. But �defunding the police� is underwater 29-49 among African-Americans (26-60 with whites). https://t.co/FUya4A8Lgt pic.twitter.com/a4GENmuJir

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 12, 2020

CNN:

Trump and NASCAR diverge over the place for symbols of America's racist past

President Donald Trump, upset after catching wind of his own military's openness to changing the names of certain bases honoring Confederate commanders, decreed such a change wouldn't happen on his watch.
NASCAR, responding to an appeal from its only full-time black driver, declared it was banning the Confederate flag at its races, where the historic symbol of Southern secession has been a common sight.
The dueling announcements, made within the same three-hour window, illustrate the entrenched position Trump has staked out as the nation continues to reckon with historic disparities on race and police brutality and as he frets about his diminished political prospects.

According to our forecast, Trump is at 46% in the popular vote today and has a 15% chance of winning. That�s worse than he ever got in our model if we rerun it for 2016. (Graphs on this coming soon.) https://t.co/O6Lknvo6Kp

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) June 13, 2020

Todd Gitlin/WaPo:

This isn’t 1968. It’s 1969.

Today’s movement more closely resembles the antiwar Moratorium protests than the unrest of the previous year.

Yes, there is something of 1968 in 2020. But the 1968 synapse oversimplifies greatly. The uprising underway now signals a vastly more popular and widespread movement reminiscent of the great outpouring of anti-Vietnam War action in October and November 1969, under the aegis of a national project called the Moratorium, which, amid outrage long in the making, cried out: Enough.

Disgusting. You have a concern with a guideline? Sure, voice it. But to launch ad hominem attacks (or even worse, threats) on public health officials is despicable. These are true public servants. I promise they�re not doing it for the paltry salary or the underfunded office. https://t.co/eZshJMNE6V

— Daniel Liebman MD MBA (@D_Liebman) June 12, 2020

Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:

Republicans have no response to tackle racism

In an inadvertently honest moment on Tuesday, McConnell declared, “None of us have had the experience of being an African American in this country and dealing with this discrimination, which persists here some 50 years after the 1964 civil rights bill and the 1965 civil rights bill.”

In using the pronoun “us,” McConnell appeared to be speaking on behalf of the 52 non-black Republicans, an odd formulation but a telling acknowledgement that they lack the diversity necessary to appreciate the full American experience. Goodness knows they have made little effort to try to educate themselves about systemic racism — as many continue to deny it even exists.

I continue to think that Biden�s core political advantage in this cycle is that none of his opponents believe he has real popular support and thus assume something will sink him. It�s basically the same phenomenon that helped Trump win. pic.twitter.com/3WQsv5jLde

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) June 12, 2020

Geoffrey Skelley/FiveThirtyEight:

The Latest Swing State Polls Look Good For Biden

Hard as it may be to believe, Election Day is now less than five months away. And at this point, former Vice President Joe Biden has a clear lead over President Trump in the national polls. But recent state-level surveys also give Biden an edge over Trump in a number of key swing states. And of course, how Trump and Biden do at the state level matters the most, as that’s how the outcome in the Electoral College will be decided.

NY Times:

Trump’s Actions Rattle the Military World: ‘I Can’t Support the Man’

“The news of wanting to deploy the military domestically has caused a huge sense of outrage among most families I know,” said Sarah Streyder, the director of the Secure Families Initiative, which advocates diplomacy-first foreign policy and works on behalf of military families. “A lot of military families live on Facebook. Social media is very important for this transient community.”

Numerous military spouses concurred. “From what I see from my friends communicating online, spouses have grown much more vocal in opposition to policies,” said Kate Marsh Lord, a Democrat who is married to a member of the Air Force and lives in Virginia but votes in Ohio. “I have seen more spouses speak out on issues of race and lack of leadership than in my entire 15 years as a military spouse.”

Friday Night Owls: Excerpts from the July Harper’s Index

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

Excerpts from the July edition of the Harper’s Index:

  • Percentage by which U.S. college enrollment is expected to decline this year: 15
  • Average percentage by which a 2020 college graduate is projected to earn less in their first postgraduate year than a 2019 graduate: 20
  • Percentage of white workers in the United States who can work from home: 30
  • Percentage of African American workers who can: 20
  • Of Latino workers: 16
  • Portion of Americans who say they will still shake hands after COVID-19 has disappeared: 3/10
  • Estimated number of unexpected pregnancies attributable to the COVID-19 crisis if lockdowns last through October: 7,000,000
  • Percentage by which social isolation increases the mortality rate for men: 62
  • For women: 75
  • Number of state and local health-department jobs that have been eliminated since 2008 because of funding cuts: 56,360
  • [Percentage of British adults] who want “everything to go back to how it was” when the lockdown is over: 1/10

TOP COMMENTSHIGH IMPACT STORIES

QUOTATION

“It does no service to the cause of racial equality for white people to content themselves with judging themselves to be non-racist. Few people outside the Klan or skinhead movements own up to all-out racism these days. White people must take the extra step. They must become anti-racist.”          ~~Clarence Page (1996)

TWEET OF THE DAY

...in Presidental elections. Isn�t that crazy? Dems have lost white voters in every Presidential election since civil rights. Dems also lost 5/6 of the Presidential elections directly after civil rights! Dems made the right moral choice even knowing it cost them political power!

— Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) June 13, 2020

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—Women's pay gap looks better because men's average pay has gotten worse:

As my colleague Laura Clawson wrote earlier this week, 50 years after the Equal Pay Act, 97 percent of women working full-time still earn less than their male counterparts. A number of reasons have been offered for this, but one of them is still, half a century after corrective measures were taken, outright discrimination.

Another round of proof came last October in a study by the American Association of University Women, Graduating to a Pay Gap. It showed, just one year after they obtained their diplomas, college-educated women were on average already making $7,600 less each year than their male counterparts. And that wasn't because they were having babies or because they all chose fields that were less lucrative. The reason for the lower pay was simply because they were female.

Over the past three decades, there has been improvement, a narrowing of the gap. As Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute points out, the median hourly wage for women in 1979 was 62.7 of the median for men. In 2012, it was 82.8 percent:

However, a big chunk of that improvement—more than a quarter of it—happened because of men’s wage losses, rather than women’s wage gains. 

With the exception of the period of labor market strength in the late 1990s, the median male wage, after adjusting for inflation, has decreased over essentially the entire period since the late 1970s. Between 1979 and 1996, it dropped 11.5 percent, from $19.53 per hour to $17.27 per hour. With the strong labor market of the late 1990s, the median male wage partially rebounded to $18.93 by 2002. It then began declining again; at $18.03 per hour in 2012, the real wage of the median male was 4.7 percent below where it had been a decade earlier.

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Simpler times! Our 6/12/19 show! Greg Dworkin reaffirms Trump's terrible polling outlook. Paula Writer discusses a plan to win the impeachment fight. Chao steers DoT $ for hubby. Trump rakes in more emoluments. Russian trolling worse than reported.

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Brazil overtakes UK with world's second-highest Covid-19 death toll

Brazil overtakes UK with world's second-highest Covid-19 death tollTally published by coalition of news outlets compiling stats since Brazil’s health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal figuresBrazil has overtaken Britain as the country with the world’s second-highest Covid-19 death toll after a further 843 deaths pushed its total to 41,901.The tally was published on Friday night by a coalition of news outlets which has been compiling independent statistics since Brazil’s health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal the full figures last week.According to the British government 41,481 lives have been lost in the UK since late January although the number rises to more than 50,000 when suspected cases are included. Brazil’s death toll is also considered an underestimate.Only in the US, where the official death toll stands at more than 116,000, have more died.Medical experts have voiced despair at what they call Jair Bolsonaro’s calamitous response to the pandemic.The Trump-admiring former army captain has repeatedly downplayed Covid-19 as media “hysteria” and “a bit of a cold” and on 12 April, with the official death toll at 1,223, falsely claimed: “This matter of the virus appears to be going away.”Since then more than 40,000 Brazilians have died yet the far-right populist has continued to undermine social distancing by attending rallies and visiting shops. Two health ministers have been forced from government in under a month after clashing with Bolsonaro over coronavirus.During a live broadcast on Thursday Bolsonaro – who has defended his response as designed to protect the economy and jobs – again minimized the tragedy.He accused Brazilian journalists of focusing too much on the dead in order to produce “funeral TV” and claimed one former health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, had produced “ficticious” Covid-19 statistics in a bid to keep Brazilians at home. “The aim was to disseminate terror.”Bolsonaro also insinuated his rivals were deliberately exaggerating the number of Covid-19 deaths in their states. “What do they hope to gain from this? Political benefits, that’s all it can be. They’re taking advantage of people who are dying to profit politically and blame the federal government,” Bolsonaro claimed.Daniel Dourado, a public health expert and lawyer from the University of São Paulo, said the president shouldered overwhelming responsibility for the scale of the catastrophe.“Bolsonaro has played a pitiful role. I’ve not heard of a single country whose president has hampered the fight against the epidemic so much. It’s as if he still hasn’t grasped the danger of the situation. He doesn’t even express sympathy to the families … It’s as if his policies are being driven by a [Freudian] death drive.”Dourado added: “If we carry on like this … it’s possible we might even catch up with the US in the number of cases. It seems preposterous to say this now. But if Brazil reopens and does what the federal government wants … things could deteriorate very fast. So I’m really worried. As incredible as it might seem, with [about] 1,000 deaths a day we could still be underestimating the impact of this pandemic.”The US has recorded more than 2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, while Brazil has registered 829,902.This week a University of Washington projection found another 100,000 Brazilian lives could be lost by August, meaning Brazil might overtake the US as the country with the highest death toll.Brazil’s Covid-19 crisis is playing out against the backdrop of one of the most bitter and bizarre political crises since its return to democracy in the 1980s.Federal police are investigating at least two of Bolsonaro’s sons for suspected corruption and links to a fake news racket. Last month investigators raided addresses linked to key Bolsonaristas including a former Femen activist turned anti-abortion-militant and a multimillionaire retail magnate famed for wearing garish yellow and green suits and building Statue of Liberty replicas outside his stores.In an apparent bid to stave off the threat of Bolsonaro’s impeachment or the voiding of his 2018 election, loyalists, including top military figures, have played up the threat of military intervention against congress and the supreme court. Last month Bolsonaro’s politician son Eduardo – who is Steve Bannon’s point man in South America – warned Brazil was heading for a “moment of rupture”.Luís Francisco Carvalho Filho, the former head of Brazil’s Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, said he was deeply worried about Bolsonaro’s authoritarian vision and the long-term threat he posed to Brazilian democracy.“I was born in 1957 and I think this is the most grave moment my generation has faced. Never before has a Brazilian head of state acted with such contempt for the institutional system,” Carvalho Filho said.“Even the last presidents of the military regime played by the rules of the game. Bolsonaro is a man who tries every single day to do away with the rules of the game.”


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