babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalMcConnell has 17-point lead over Democratic challenger McGrath: poll
McConnell has 17-point lead over Democratic challenger McGrath: poll
By Alexander Bolton - 08/04/20 10:08 AM EDT
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is leading his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, by a commanding 17 points in a new poll that shows the GOP leader ahead 53 to 36 percent.
Eighty-four percent of Republicans polled by Morning Consult said they support McConnell while 79 percent of Democrats said they back McGrath. Twelve percent of Democrats said they also support McConnell.
The GOP leader also has more support among independents than McGrath, with 45 percent backing McConnell and 33 percent favoring McGrath.
The survey of 700 likely voters in Kentucky, reported on by the Louisville Courier Journal, was conducted online from July 24 to Aug. 2 and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
more...
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/510418-mcconnell-has-17-point-lead-over-democratic-challenger-mcgrath-poll
David Corn: The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/racism-republican-party-stuart-stevens/The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.
Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP.
David Corn
September/October 2020 Issue
snip//
Asked if the Republican Party in the Trump years has become an outfit free of governing ideas, Stevens went even further: It was all a lie. He noted that this was word-for-word the title of his forthcoming book, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. The modern GOP, he said, never truly cared about the ideas it claimed to care about.
This was a stunning indictment coming from a longtime political consultant who had toiled on five Republican presidential campaigns and numerous Senate and gubernatorial races. The Republican Party has been a cartel, Stevens said excitedly. And no one asks a cartel, Whats your ideological purpose? You dont ask OPEC, Whats your ideology? You dont ask a drug gang, Whats your program? The Republicans exist for the pursuit of power for no purpose.
snip//
Stevens now argues that Trumps rise was not a fluke that the party can sidestep or survive. This is the complete moral collapse of a governing party of a major superpower, he remarked. He wonders how he could have been blind to the GOPs racism and turpitude for so long. It is hard to see this when youre in the middle of it, he said. The only analogy I can find is the collapse of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, when the difference between reality and what is believed became so disjointed. I shouldve seen this. I did see this, but I wanted to believe the crazies were a minority.
Stevens conceded that had Trump not come along, he still might not have been fully aware of the structural immorality of the GOP: The Republican Party was a comfortable place for a lot of us. If Trump had lost, Id probably still be working for a Republican candidate. But Trump made it impossible to deny what the party is. I just dont get why these Republican senators dont stand up to him. Whats the worst thing? Youll be an ex-senator? They are the Trump Generation. Its how they will be remembered. Like the segregationists of old.
It was hard to slow Stevens down as he spoke. He had so much to confess. He forecast a bleak future for the party. Citing the demise of the Republican Party in California (where more voters are now registering no party preference than Republican), he observed that the GOP was becoming a regional/Sun Belt party. And he shared his fear that young political operatives working for the party have drawn the lesson that a candidate must emulate Trump to winthat what most matters is not policy ideas but the ability to attack and exploit fears, divisions, tribalism, and resentments. Elizabeth Warren can articulate a coherent theory of government, Stevens said. There is no coherent theory of government for Republicans right now. Usually a coherent theory versus an incoherent theory carries the day.
Its really incredible how this had happened, Stevens told me, as I realized I had received far more material from him than anticipated. This is the last book in the world I wanted to write. It is tough to come to terms with this, and incredibly depressing. If we say we believe in personal responsibility, you have to take personal responsibility and start with yourself. We created this. It didnt just happen. Stevens was not pleased or satisfied with his epiphany: Ideas are not the currency for todays GOP and never truly were. And Trump alone could not be blamed for that. Republicans only exist to elect Republicans, Stevens remarked with sadness. They are down to one idea: How can we win?
Administration wants West Wing remodel money in virus bill
NOW they want to remodel? Just Say No! They have horrible taste to boot.
Administration wants West Wing remodel money in virus bill
By ZEKE MILLER
July 29, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration wants $377 million in the next coronavirus relief bill for a long-delayed modernization of the West Wing, but the timetable for construction is yet to be determined.
The sum, included in the draft aid legislation from Senate Republicans, would also cover a new security screening facility for the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex.
While lawmakers, including Republicans, have balked at the administrations request for more than $1 billion in the bill for a new FBI headquarters in Washington, the West Wing plan has drawn relatively little scrutiny. The administration says the White House work would increase the White House campuss ability to detect, mitigate and alleviate external security and pandemic threats.
more...
https://apnews.com/589692882c67650b87daeec5765660c5?fbclid=IwAR2_DyPiHxfbyLafJwu_PNiC-CYbxGJK56EmmzvDMpFr2eJMzF7jbpv2YqE
Nevada governor signs mail-in voting bill after Trump threatens lawsuit
https://www.axios.com/nevada-gov-mail-in-voting-bill-trump-sue-threat-e0b6987a-c993-4730-ada3-fb95e85b95cb.html
Nevada governor signs mail-in voting bill after Trump threatens lawsuit
Rebecca Falconer
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) announced Monday evening that he's signed a bill enabling all registered voters in the state to vote by mail in November's elections.
Why it matters: President Trump told reporters Monday he'd sue Nevada in a bid to stop the mail-in measure. After Sisolak's announcement, Trump retweeted his earlier tweet stating: "In an illegal late night coup, Nevada's clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state. Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court!"
Trump Under Investigation for Bank and Insurance Fraud by Manhattan District Attorney...
https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/08/trump-under-investigation-for-bank-and-insurance-fraud-by-manhattan-district-attorney-legal-filing-suggests/Trump Under Investigation for Bank and Insurance Fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, Legal Filing Suggests
Published
on August 3, 2020 at 01:16 PM ET
By David Badash
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. on Monday moved to dismiss a lawsuit by President Donald Trumps attorneys, and in that legal filing suggested he is investigating the president and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud.
Vance made the disclosure in a new federal court filing arguing Mr. Trump should have to comply with its subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns, The New York Times reports. Mr. Trump has asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid.
The filing cites undisputed news reports to make clear that Vance has a legal basis for his subpoena ordering Trumps accounting firm to hand over 8 years of the presidents personal and corporate tax returns.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month supported Vances attempts to obtain the documents.
A nearly two-year old New York Times investigation found that President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents,
More than 100 CEOs warn Congress of 'catastrophic' consequences for small biz without relief bill
More than 100 CEOs warn Congress of 'catastrophic' consequences for small biz without relief bill
The letter, spearheaded by Howard Schultz, chairman emeritus of Starbucks, was also signed by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Image: Howard Schultz
Aug. 3, 2020, 8:00 AM EDT
By Stephanie Ruhle and Rebecca Shabad
WASHINGTON More than 100 current and former top executives at major U.S. companies are calling on Congress to pass long-term relief for small businesses to ensure they survive the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter released Monday that was sent to top congressional leaders of both parties in the House and Senate, the CEOs and other executives warn of significant consequences to the economy if Congress doesn't immediately act to save small business.
more...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/more-100-ceos-warn-congress-catastrophic-consequences-small-biz-without-n1235613
by USAF Colonel (ret.) Curtis Milam
FB~
by USAF Colonel (ret.) Curtis Milam
But over time Ive come to appreciate Trump in ways I did not expect. Now, I am thankful that we elected Trump. Because Donald Trump is exactly what America needed. Trump is a mirror, a warning, and ultimately a catalyst for change. Reflected in Trump is all that is wrong with the United States: the injustice of our broken social contract, the crassness of our politics, and the cruelty of our economy. Trump is also the shock that a mature democracy needs for action. To use a timely metaphor, Trump and his supporters are a virus, and they have activated our democratic antibodies. What we are seeing in the streets is the body fighting the infection.
America was the first modern nation, created of, by, and for the peoplesupposedly a nation with no class structure, where anyone could reach their potential. But that was a myth. America had classes: slaves at the bottomtreated not as people but propertythen poor and working-class whites, and atop it all our original aristocracy of landed gentry and traders in the South, merchants and industrialists in the North. We fought a civil war to end slavery but failed in its aftermath to establish the more perfect union mentioned by our Founders. What we are seeing in our current moment is not only a race war but a class war. America must confront systemic racism to move forward, but it also must acknowledge that we have created a permanent underclass of all colors (though mostly Black and brown). We are a society where your melanin content and your zip code determine your future.
Beginning with Newt Gingrich in 1994, Republicans stopped trying to govern and instead began accumulating power. McKay Coppins writes in his profile of Gingrich in the Atlantic, few figures in modern history have done more than Gingrich to lay the groundwork for Trumps rise. Effective governance requires compromise, trust, and mutual respect. Gingrichs new version of Republican had no interest in that. He destroyed the bipartisan structures for governing and even resorted to name-calling and conspiracy theoriesover the line at the time, but in hindsight presaging Trumpism.
A straight line can be drawn from Gingrichs Contract with America to the tea party in 2009. Another outsider movement characterized by distrust of government, expertise, and experience, the tea party helped elect a rogues gallery of loathsome lawmakersIm looking at you, Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ted Cruz (Texas). Trumps dystopian vision of America is the ultimate flowering of the outsider, populist, anti-government thinking that has metastasized in the Republican Party over the past decades.
Under both political parties, America has rolled back regulatory guardrails and created a volatile economy that values the wrong things. Executive compensation packages for publicly traded companies show that our current economic model rewards short-term financial performance, placing little value on the broader social landscape. It also encourages risky and complex structures that are susceptible to wild swings and disastrous crashes. When bailouts are needed, its not the wealthy who pay. The system helped create the greatest wealth disparity in the United States in 100 years. As wealth is concentrated at destabilizing levels, our tax system, according to leading economists, is increasingly regressive, pushing the burden of taxes onto the shrinking middle class.
Over the same period, we dismantled the meager social safety net we had. We have reduced access to food aid, job training, and unemployment insurance. Meanwhile, the cost of health care and higher education has skyrocketed, placing both out of reach for many Americans.
Now for the good news.
Everything wrong with America is manifested in Trump. The hunger for power, the vile derision of people who dont look like you, the cruelty, the privilege, the gleeful ignorance, and mendacious narcissism. Our revulsion at Trump is causing Americans to ask: How did we get to this place? And how do we get out? That will take time and hard work by well-intentioned people from every corner of American society.
But the process has started.
What is happening in our streets is how open, progressive societies improvefitfully, imperfectly, frustratingly, sometimes tragically. But we do improve. So, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for showing us what we were becoming and helping us find the courage to confront it. We are going to be OK.
by USAF Colonel (ret.) Curtis Milam
Does anyone remember the NYT's people profiles
after 9/11?
I so appreciate hearing about people's lives who have died from covid-19, and the journalists who are making that possible.
To cover everyone as the NYT tried to do? That will never happen, and that's not right.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: AOC is the hornet's nest Republicans cannot stop themselves from poking
https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/07/29/aoc-is-the-hornets-nest-republicans-cannot-stop-themselves-from-poking-column/AOC is the hornets nest Republicans cannot stop themselves from poking | Column
What must it be like when that contempt is your everyday, when the threat of violent action simmering behind violent words becomes your ordinary? Half of us cannot imagine. Half of us know all too well, writes Leonard Pitts.
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Published Jul. 29
snip//
So he called her something, a vulgar noun modified by a vulgar adjective, neither of which is printable here, both of which you know all too well, because they are a woman-hating insult routine in the lexicon of men whose primacy has been challenged, whose egos have been bruised, who have been denied something they want.
Last week, it took center stage in the House of Representatives, via a speech from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. For some reason, she is the hornets nest Republicans cannot stop themselves from poking, even though they end up stung to pieces every time.
Florida Rep. Ted Yoho is the latest. He accosted Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and told her she was disgusting for having linked a spike in crime to poverty and unemployment. You are out of your freaking mind, he said. She called him rude and walked away.
A few steps down, reported Mike Lillis of the Hill newspaper, who witnessed the exchange, Yoho offered a parting thought to no one in particular. F------- b----, he said.
Afterward, Yohos first comment was No comment. He later offered an apology that wasnt, expressing contrition for his abrupt manner. He said, Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, Im very cognizant of my language. The offensive name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues and if they were construed that way, I apologize for the misunderstanding. Hes just passionate on the issue of poverty, he said.
Ocasio-Cortez rightly rejected this self-justifying swill. Addressing the House Thursday, she noted that shes been called such things before. Its something women get used to ignoring, and she might have done so, but for Yohos use of his wife and daughters as moral shields. I am two years younger than Mr. Yohos youngest daughter, the 30-year-old legislator said. I am someones daughter, too.
... In using that language in front of the press, he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community. And I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable. Bread For The World, a nonprofit Christian group, apparently agreed. It asked Yoho to resign from its board.
more...
https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/07/29/aoc-is-the-hornets-nest-republicans-cannot-stop-themselves-from-poking-column/
Conservative Media Is Really Struggling With the Possibility That Trump Killed Herman Cain
https://newrepublic.com/article/158728/conservative-media-really-struggling-possibility-trump-killed-herman-cainAlex Shephard/July 31, 2020
Conservative Media Is Really Struggling With the Possibility That Trump Killed Herman Cain
The idea that Cains death shouldn't be politicized is absurdand impossible.
snip//
Between hawking brain pills, Ben Shapiro made the case that people who wear masks also die. There are plenty of people dying of this who have been wearing masks and have been being careful, he said. So spare me some of the crocodile tears on behalf of people who really are not happy with Herman Cains politics. Within minutes of Cains death, the right-wing website The Blaze had collected a series of tweets from people pointing out a simple factthat the former presidential candidate had died of coronavirustitled, Liberals waste absolutely zero time politicizing Herman Cains death and blaming Trump.
The Washington Examiners Byron York, meanwhile, told his readers to ignore the fact that Cain had died from Covid-19. Like everything else these days, he wrote, Cains death was immediately discussed in a Trump-anti-Trump context. It would be preferable and more humane, he insisted, to use Cains death as an occasion to ... remember Herman Cain. For York, this included a conversation the two had about pizza crusts during the 2012 campaign.
But Cains legacy is directly tied to Trump and the anti-science, anti-elitist politics that likely contributed to his death. His own political rise presaged Trumps. Beyond a core tax policy that would have bankrupted the Treasury (9-9-9), he had no real policy portfolio to speak of in 2012. He largely seemed to be making it all up as he went alonghis famous quip that he didnt care who the president of U-beky-beky-becky-stan-stan was summed up his ethos, which privileged the authentic over the prepared. He was a businessman who believed that all of Americas problems could be solved by running the country like a mediocre regional pizza chain.
He also made his bones playing to the partys ravenous base. His campaign promises were downright Trump-y. He was unapologetically Islamophobic, pledging not to appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. He said he would build a 20-foot electrified fence on the southern border that would kill anyone who attempted to cross into the country. Ta-Nehisi Coates at the time observed, I cant really recall a candidatein recent memorythat was as bigoted as Herman Cain.
Cains death was as political as his life was. We dont knowand may never knowexactly how he contracted the coronavirus. But the idea that his attendance at Trumps Tulsa rally is purely incidental is absurd. Cain, like Trump, has flouted the recommendations of public health officials. His politics contributed to his death, even if he contracted the virus somewhere other than Tulsa.
Those attempting to wall off politics from Cains death arent doing it to protect Cain. Theyre doing it to protect Trump. Trumps failure to organize Americas response to the virus has led to more than 150,000 deaths. Trumps megalomania led him to hold an indoor rally in Oklahoma at a time when coronavirus cases were surging. Trumps decision to turn basic precautions, like the wearing of face masks, into culture-war issues have only made the problem more difficult to resolve. Its worth noting that Trump politicized Cains death as well. Asked about Cain on Thursday, he didnt offer a eulogy. Unfortunately, Trump said, he passed away from a thing called the China virus.
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