July 13, 2019

Trump nominees meet fiercest opposition from Warren, Sanders, Gillibrand

The senators who are most likely to reject President Trump's nominees are the very ones who want to challenge him in 2020.

The Hill's review of two-and-a-half years of vote totals shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against more Trump nominees than any other senator.

At the same time, Republicans voted virtually in lock step for Trump's nominees; the average GOP senator backed 99 percent of his picks, and the one who went rogue most often -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- still voted to confirm 93 percent of his nominees.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/452822-trump-nominees-meet-fiercest-opposition-from-warren-sanders-gillibrand

July 13, 2019

Turning 80 years old as President

When will a candidate turn 80 during their term if elected President in 2020 ?

Sanders: 8 months into his first term

Biden: 1 year and 10 months into his first term

Warren: never

Harris: never

Buttigieg: never

O'Rourke: never

But age is just a number. Is it an important number?

We never had an 80 year old serving as President, is it time to change that?

July 13, 2019

Harris introduces bill to cover HIV prevention drug

Sen. Kamala Harris introduced legislation Thursday that would require health insurance companies to cover the HIV prevention drug PrEP, a first-of-its-kind bill that the California Democrat timed to coincide with Pride Month.

The bill would require that insurance plans cover the full cost of PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, as well as require initial tests and related follow-up visits with a doctor.

That would go beyond a recommendation this month by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of government-appointed prevention experts, that PrEP be given to people at high risk of contracting HIV.

The medicine, sold under the brand name Truvada, can reduce the risk of contracting HIV by up to 99% if taken every day, according to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Promotion of its use in San Francisco has helped the city bring new cases of HIV to record lows.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-to-introduce-bill-to-cover-HIV-14021126.php?psid=coNqC

July 13, 2019

Elizabeth Warren headlines liberal gathering Netroots

Elizabeth Warren headlines liberal gathering as other top 2020 contenders skip Netroots

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and three other Democratic primary candidates will take center stage at the 14th annual Netroots Nation conference on Saturday, facing questions at a forum capping off days of activist workshops, panel discussions and a few morning yoga sessions.

Thousands of progressive organizers have been gathered here since Thursday, meeting to trade tips and tactics for building on last year's gains ahead of the 2020 elections. The Massachusetts Democrat will be the de facto headliner. Other early polling leaders are absent due to scheduling conflicts in what has already become, with nearly seven months to go before the Iowa caucuses, an unrelenting campaign for the party's nomination.

The presidential forum will also include New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

Netroots Nation, which debuted under a different title the summer before the 2006 midterms, is one of the longest running and most historically influential annual progressive political conferences, welcoming presidential candidates and top Democratic congressional leaders. Well before Twitter overtook blogs as the grassroots' digital megaphone of choice, it was instrumental in pushing party establishment leaders to more aggressively battle Republicans and embrace issues like climate change.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/13/politics/elizabeth-warren-netroots-nation-2019-progressive-convention/index.html

July 12, 2019

It Won't Be Easy To Make The September Debate

It Won’t Be Easy For Many Democrats To Make The September Debate

We’ll know next week who made the stage for the second Democratic primary debate on July 30-31 — July 16 is the deadline for polls that can affect who qualifies — so stay tuned, but in the meantime, here’s an early look at which Democrats are positioned to make the third debate in September.

At the moment, just five candidates have qualified for the third debate [Namely: Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, Sanders and Warren], according to our research, and while it’s early yet (candidates have until late August to improve their donor numbers and gain more support in the polls), the debate’s higher thresholds will probably result in far fewer than 20 candidates making the stage.


To qualify, candidates must have at least 2 percent support in four qualifying national or early-state polls released after the first debate on June 26-27 through two weeks before the third debate on Sept. 12-13 and 130,000 unique donors (including at least 400 individual donors in at least 20 states).1 And while those thresholds might not sound that difficult to meet, it’s definitely raising the ante from the first two debates, in which candidates needed to hit only 1 percent support in three qualifying polls or 65,000 unique donors (including at least 200 individual donors in at least 20 states).

So far, there have been six qualifying surveys for the third debate, so with more surveys to come, the number of candidates who make the cut will probably grow.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-wont-be-easy-for-many-democrats-to-make-the-september-debate/

July 12, 2019

Kamala Harris defends Nancy Pelosi

Sen. Harris defends Pelosi, saying speaker is 'very respectful of women of color'

WASHINGTON - Sen. Kamala Harris defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview that aired Friday, saying she has found her fellow California Democrat to be "very respectful of women of color," an assessment at odds with comments earlier this week by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

During an appearance on the New York-based radio show "The Breakfast Club," Harris was asked about Ocasio-Cortez's assertion in a Washington Post interview that Pelosi had been "just outright disrespectful" with "the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color."

"That's not my experience with Nancy Pelosi," said Harris, a Democratic presidential primary hopeful. "And I've known her and worked with her for years. I've known her to be very respectful of women of color and very supportive of them."

https://www.chron.com/news/article/Sen-Harris-defends-Pelosi-saying-speaker-is-14090703.php

July 12, 2019

Why I'm Endorsing Elizabeth Warren by Liuba Grechen Shirley

Liuba Grechen Shirley: Why I'm Endorsing Elizabeth Warren

In this exclusive op-ed, Liuba Grechen Shirley, who in 2018 ran for U.S. Representative in New York's traditionally Republican 2nd District, tells us why she is endorsing Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president.

I remember one of the hardest days of my campaign was when my son Nicholas had recently broken his leg. We had spent hours at the doctor’s that day. Both kids were crying and exhausted. I was exhausted.

Then I got a call from Elizabeth Warren. The conversation started with politics and quickly turned to motherhood as I told her what was going on with Nicholas. We talked about my mom and her Aunt Bee, and I broke down on the phone. I started crying, and she gave me the mom pep talk I needed at that moment. She told me, "We moms...when we run out of milk, we make breakfast with orange juice." She gave me advice and she listened. The conversation I had with Elizabeth was about more than motherhood. It was about the struggles that working parents face every day.

I know how hard it is to be a working parent in the United States. When I had my first child, Mila, I was the director of a research institute at New York University. I didn’t have paid family leave and couldn’t get my daughter into daycare because of years-long waiting lists for child-care centers I couldn’t even afford. We moved back home to Long Island so my mom could help watch our children and I could keep working.

Running for Congress was the last thing I thought I would do, but when my representative Peter King voted to take healthcare coverage away from 74,000 people in our district alone and told me that holding a town hall would only "diminish democracy," I got angry. I held a town hall for him, and then I ran against him.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/07/237670/liuba-grechen-shirley-endorses-elizabeth-warren-president-2020-child-care

July 12, 2019

Fox News SC Poll Looks Really Good for Joe Biden

Former Vice President Joe Biden remains indomitable in a new survey of Democratic voters in South Carolina, a state critical to capturing the party's 2020 presidential nomination.

In a new Fox News poll released Thursday, Biden towered above his Democratic challengers at 35 percent, more than the share of support received by the next four leading contenders combined. Fourteen percent of South Carolina Democratic primary voters indicated support for Senator Bernie Sanders and 12 percent chose Senator Kamala Harris.

Thursday's poll is the first major survey in South Carolina to be conducted after the first Democratic debates of the 2020 cycle. Biden was widely seen by political commentators to have been bruised by Harris during a tense exchange at the Miami debates over his opposition to federally mandated busing in the Civil Rights era.

Harris, accordingly, saw her fortunes rise after the debate performance in late June where she was lauded by Democratic pundits for sharing how she benefited as a child from busing-supported school desegregation.

But her breakout turn in Miami has not appeared to break through Biden's solid grasp of the Democratic primary base in South Carolina, where she ranks third in the Fox News survey and well below Biden's lead.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-fox-news-2020-poll-1449015

The polls are what the polls are.

People should take the good with the bad (polls for their candidates) without criticizing unfavorable poll results.

July 12, 2019

Warren Demands Answers From ICE About Its New Detention Centers in the South

After a report from Mother Jones, Warren wants ICE to explain why its using three new for-profit detention centers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is demanding answers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement following a Mother Jones report that the agency has begun using three new for-profit detention centers in the Deep South.

ICE is sending asylum seekers to the facilities even though Congress just rejected another request from the agency for funds to allow it to detain more migrants. One of the new centers saw the death of three inmates following poor medical treatment and a riot in 2012 that left a guard dead.

In a letter sent to acting ICE director Mark Morgan on Thursday, Warren wrote that “it appears that ICE has decided to place immigrant detainees at these facilities without providing proper notice, despite the fact that they suffer from a myriad of health and safety problems.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/warren-demands-answers-from-ice-following-mother-jones-report-on-detention-centers/

July 12, 2019

Harris among top tier candidates with room to grow

Poll shows Harris among top tier candidates with room to grow

Rachel Maddow reports on the results of the latest NBC News/WSJ Democratic primary poll, including some details in the cross tabs that show Kamala Harris with an opportunity to convert some voters to her side.
July 11, 2019

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/poll-shows-harris-among-top-tier-candidates-with-room-to-grow-63705157776