A new Pew Poll on Americans’ views of vaccines after the COVID crisis is interesting. If you are following this story, click over to the whole thing. Here’s the upshot:
Americans remain steadfast in their belief in the overall value of childhood vaccines, with no change over the last four years in the large majority who say the benefits of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) outweigh the risks, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Still, the survey finds that alongside broad support for childhood vaccines there are signs of some concern – especially among those closest to the decision-making process of vaccinating children. Parents see the risks of MMR vaccines as a bit higher than other Americans, and about half of those with a young child ages 0 to 4 say the statement “I worry that not all of the childhood vaccines are necessary” describes their views at least somewhat well. Concerns tend to be higher among mothers than fathers: Roughly half of mothers with a child under 18 rate the risk of side effects from MMR vaccines as medium or high – 15 percentage points higher than the share of fathers who say this.
The polarized response to the handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, including the role of COVID-19 vaccines, has been a source of deep concern for medical and public health communities. It has also raised questions about whether vaccine hesitancy connected with COVID-19 vaccines would spill into Americans’ views of other vaccines. Heightened concerns follow reports of federal data that show another downtick in the share of U.S. kindergartners receiving state-required vaccines in the 2021-2022 school year.
The survey findings highlight the sizable gap between higher public confidence in childhood vaccines and lower ratings of COVID-19 vaccines. Fewer than half of U.S. adults consider the preventative health benefits of coronavirus vaccines to be high and a majority see the risk of side effects from them to be at least medium. COVID-19 vaccines were widely hailed as advances that showcased the power of scientific discovery. Yet a majority of Americans still say the statement “we don’t really know if there are serious health risks from the COVID-19 vaccines” describes their views at least somewhat well.
With the U.S. national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic now at an end, Americans have sorted themselves into three groups based on their vaccination decisions. Roughly a third of U.S. adults (34%) are enthusiastic about the vaccines and up-to-date, being fully vaccinated and having gotten a recent booster shot. A similar share of the public (33%) comprises an ambivalent group that is fully vaccinated, but not recently boosted, with many who have questions about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. And then there are the 21% of U.S. adults who have said no to the vaccines altogether, a group that harbors deep doubts about the vaccines as well as societal efforts to encourage – or require – them.
These three groups encapsulate the range of Americans’ responses to coronavirus vaccines. They also provide a way to understand views about vaccines generally.
The Mifepristone case was argued before the 5th Circuit today and it went exactly as predicted:
A panel of 5th Circuit Court of Appeals judges — all Republican appointees — unapologetically carried water for the anti-abortion litigants Wednesday during oral arguments in a case where those litigants are trying to get an abortion pill, mifepristone, yanked from the market.
“When we celebrated Mother’s Day, did we celebrate an illness?” Judge James Ho, a Donald Trump appointee, snarked, regurgitating a false argument by the anti-abortion doctor plaintiffs that the Food and Drug Administration classified pregnancy as an illness to rush mifepristone through the approval process.
But perhaps the comedic peak of the arguments came when George W. Bush appointee Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod took time out to scold the lawyer for Danco, a manufacturer of mifepristone, for criticizing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the anti-abortion district court judge that handed down the first ruling in the case. Kacsmaryk’s ruling has been widely panned, including by his fellowjudges, as the latest in a series of nakedly partisan decisions.
“Your filings have been excellent, however I am concerned about some rather unusual remarks in the filings — these are remarks we don’t normally see in briefing from very esteemed counsel that talk about the district court,” Elrod said, affecting a dramatic tone to read phrases including that the district court “defied long-standing precedent” and that the court’s injunction was “an unprecedented judicial assault.”
“I’m wondering if you would have had more time and not been under a rush and probably exhausted from this whole process, would those have been statements that would have been included in your brief?” she asked.
When Danco’s lawyer pushed back, saying that the language reflected the unprecedented nature of the case, Elrod took an incredulous tone: “So you think it’s appropriate to attack the district court personally in the case in that way.” Ho soon jumped in to continue the beratement.
The three-judge panel, rounded out by Trump appointee Judge Cory Wilson, left little mystery as to how it will ultimately rule. The judges asked questions premised on the myth that mifepristone is sending floods of women to the emergency room, prompting the Department of Justice lawyer to frequently remind the judges that the drug is incredibly safe. Ho railed against the FDA, listing a series of supposed errors it made unrelated to the abortion case, seemingly to make the case that judges should overturn its experts’ decisions.
Elrod grilled the lawyer for Danco, pushing for her to provide justification for how the company would suffer any injury if the court restricts its primary product — after she and her colleagues fought tooth and nail to show that the anti-abortion doctors, who have struggled to show any direct injury from the mifepristone regime, have standing to bring the case in the first place.
Elrod also, while asking how information about adverse reactions to mifepristone are collected, asked how it’s gathered from emergency rooms — “or, God forbid, the morgue.”
Ho also brought up Justice Samuel Alito’s furious dissent, when he asked whether the government would even heed court decisions in this case. Some Democrats have called on the Biden administration to leave mifepristone on the market no matter what happens, citing the right-wing judge shopping in the case. The White House has told TPM that it will not “ignore” the court decisions, but didn’t clarify how the FDA would act, should it lose at the Supreme Court.
The Fifth Circuit’s attitude was predictable to the anti-abortion litigants too. It’s why they placed this case with Kacsmaryk in Texas, knowing that there’s a very good chance that they’d get a right-wing panel when the case got appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has filed to divorce her husband of two decades, according to court records obtained Tuesday by The Daily Beast.
The April 25 filing seeks to dissolve her marriage to Jayson Boebert, with whom she shares four sons. An affidavit of service, also obtained by The Daily Beast, indicate that Jayson Boebert appeared to be caught off guard by the court proceedings. He chased away a process server with an expletive-laden tirade and let his dogs loose when he was served with the divorce papers, the affidavit said.
“Once he learned that he was being served with Dissolution of Marriage papers he was extremely angry,” the process server wrote. “I tried to hand him the documents but [he] did not take them. He started yelling and using profanities, and told me that I was trespassing, and that he was calling the Sheriff’s Office. I told him I was leaving the documents on the chair outside of the door, he closed the door then let the dogs out.”
The document noted that Jayson was cleaning a gun and drinking a “tall glass of beer” when he was served.
Boebert, who has repeatedly spoken of the importance of “family values” in her short political career, told The Daily Beast in a statement Tuesday that the divorce was due to “irreconcilable differences.”
“It is with a heavy weight on my heart that I have filed for divorce from my husband,” the statement said. “I am grateful for our years of marriage together and for our beautiful children, all of whom deserve privacy and love as we work through this process. I’ve always been faithful in my marriage, and I believe strongly in marriage, which makes this announcement that much more difficult. This is truly about irreconcilable differences.”
Boebert previously said she met Jayson when she was 16 and working at Burger King. The couple had their first kid, Tyler, when she was 18, and they recently shared that they’re about to become grandparents.
Speaking to The Daily Beast via text, Jayson said he was “upset,” but denied saying “anything bad” to the process server and that his dogs were “no threat.”
“I did not know what I was being served for or if it was some crazy left wing person coming to my house again,” Jayson continued.
“I was not drinking and I was not cleaning any gun. The divorce is sad, I did not expect this, I love her with every bit of my heart, she has been my soul mate and she is the mother of my Children.
“We have been through a lot together and I just want her to be happy,” Jayson said, ending with: “So it’s what ever she wants.”
Boebert’s office did not answer when asked if she intends to keep her married surname.
“I do not intend to discuss this matter any further in public out of respect for our children and will continue to work hard to represent the people of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District,” her statement said.
Jayson and Boebert had their fair share of brushes with law enforcement during their time together. Jayson was arrested in 2004 for exposing his penis to two women at a bowling alley—a crime he pleaded guilty to. Boebert, who was then 17-year-old Lauren Opal Roberts, was at the bowling alley, too, but she reportedly stayed with Jason.
That same year, Jayson and Boebert were arrested for separate incidents in which they reportedly abused each other. Jayson was arrested on a domestic violence charge that February, while Boebert was slapped with charges of third-degree assault, criminal mischief and underage drinking in May.
Boebert landed herself in hot water again in 2010—with a neighbor accusing her two pitbulls of attacking a pup. Boebert pleaded guilty to a “dog at large” charge and paid a $75 fine.
Boebert was arrested again in 2015 for disorderly conduct at a country music festival, and was charged with careless driving a year later after she rolled her truck into a ditch.
More recently, neighbors of the couple called 911 in August and accused Jayson of running over their mailbox and threatening them. In 911 calls obtained by The Denver Post, a neighbor is heard yelling to a dispatcher, “It’s Lauren Boebert’s jackass husband, Jayson. He’s running over my mailbox right now… Stop you jackass. Get the fuck out of here.”
No arrests were made and the local sheriff’s office remained tight-lipped about the incident.
Uh huh…
I can’t help but wonder if Boebert, like her sister in arms, Marge Greene, hasn’t found herself a boyfriend while she’s been away. It gets lonely in Washington in all those late nights spent destroying the country.
The videos from Florida aren’t hard to find: Dozens of clips of empty fields, abandoned construction sites, and scores of truck drivers calling for boycotts of the state have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok and Twitter over the last month. The common thread? Fear and frustration over the state’s newest anti-immigrant law, signed a week ago by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, which mandates that businesses with 25 or more employees verify the citizenship status of workers through the federal online portal E-Verify or face stronger penalties, among other new restrictions.
The new law, which goes into effect on July 1, is the latest move by DeSantis to capitalize on immigration politics as he prepares for a likely but as-yet-unannounced 2024 presidential campaign. The law, one of the most stringent state immigration measures in the US, seems intended to contrast President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration policy as the controversial pandemic-era health rule Title 42 expired last week. But the impact of the bill, critics say, will amount to a wide-ranging and intrusive crackdown on the state’s large immigrant communities, which stand to face the brunt of the new rules.
Florida is home to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants, and many work in the kinds of businesses that would be impacted by the law, known as SB 1718. Many of those affected are also members of mixed-status families — where a son or daughter, for example, might be a US citizen while their parents are not. The bill’s impact extends beyond the workplace to health care and highways: Even family members could be targets of law enforcement under a new provision that punishes anyone who transports an undocumented person “knowingly and willfully” into Florida across state lines.
The law also requires Florida hospitals that accept Medicaid to collect the immigration status of patients and calculate and report the cost of health care for undocumented people to the state; it no longer permits undocumented people to use driver’s licenses issued from other states and prohibits state ID cards to be issued to them.
Combined, these provisions may also deal a devastating blow to Florida businesses that rely on migrant labor, as it may force workers and their families to flee Florida, Samuel Vilchez Santiago, the Florida state director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, told Vox.
“The narrative that immigrants are not welcome here is going to have a huge impact on our business community — in particular industries such as construction, hospitality, health care, and agriculture — because they rely solely or primarily on migrant labor. As fear becomes the norm in immigrant communities, a lot of these migrant workers will start leaving the state and looking somewhere else,” Vilchez Santiago said. “And there is a lot of fear in migrant communities across the state.”
The law was already causing panic across Florida before DeSantis signed it. In South Florida, reporters with a local CBS News affiliate tracked empty construction sites across Miami-Dade County and spoke with construction workers who said that many of their coworkers were not showing up to work because they feared deportation. An NBC affiliate interviewed farmworkers in South Florida considering moves out of the state because of fear of persecution.
DeSantis’s office referred Vox to comments the governor made during a press conference this week. “When we have something like an E-Verify, that’s a tool to make sure that longstanding Florida law is enforced,” DeSantis said. “You can’t build a strong economy based on illegality.”
I’ve joked about DeSantis being so extreme that he’ll be bringing back slavery before too long but if this keeps up I won’t be surprised if he actually does it. At the very least there’s a good chance he’ll jump on the other red state solutions of legalizing child and forced prison labor. He’s going to be short around 800,000 workers and I don’t see how he retreats on this one. Immigrant bashing is central to his presidential campaign.
The long awaited Durham Report about his “investigation of the investigation” of the origins of the Russia probe was finally released on Monday after four long years. And just like everything that touches Donald Trump these days, the right insists that it says something completely at odds with reality — Durham’s report simply does not say what they say it says.
But what else is new?
Every nonsensical charge made by Donald Trump is deemed by his supporters to automatically be true and every charge against him is a hoax or a witch hunt. In this case Trump and his media enablers have been touting this investigation for years as “The Big One” that finally prove that “Russia, Russia, Russia” was a witch hunt, set-up by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. It fails on every count to prove that case.
All Durham concluded was that the FBI should not have opened a full investigation but rather a preliminary investigation based on what it knew at the time. He says that when they got a tip from an Australian diplomat who had a conversation with a Trump campaign official saying the Russians were working to get Donald Trump elected in the days right after the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computers, they used the wrong process to start their investigation. That’s it. The rest is all smoke and mirrors.
In fact, nobody in their right mind would have thought they shouldn’t be concerned about that until Donald Trump and his accomplices decided that Russia interfering in American elections is perfectly fine. Worse than that, Durham insists the FBI was too zealous in its investigation even though their suspicions were clearly vindicated when it became obvious that something very weird was going with Trump’s campaign that summer.
After getting the tip from the Aussie diplomat, they observed that Trump hired a campaign chairman who had been working on behalf of Russian interests in Ukraine for years and was neck deep in debt to a Russian Oligarch. They saw that Trump was saying publicly that he wanted the Russians to do more hacking (which they did the day after he asked them to ) and although they didn’t find this out until later, the fact remains that Russians were meeting with the campaign and family members at Trump Tower with offers to pass on dirt on Clinton. There were half a dozen other very unusual Russia connections that demanded investigation. If the FBI hadn’t pursued all those leads it would have been a monumental dereliction of duty. A foreign government was blatantly interfering in the election.
Moreover, unlike Durham, the special counsel investigation that grew out of the FBI original investigation successfully convicted a whole bunch of people for crimes they uncovered. The report they issued did not find that the Trump campaign had illegally conspired with Russia but it certainly found that Russia worked to get Trump elected. They indicted 26 Russian nationals and 3 Russian organizations, including 12 intelligence agents,for hacking the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Nonetheless Durham still maintains that Hillary Clinton was behind this nefarious plot to frame Trump even though his big case trying trying to prove that turned out to be a dud and ended in acquittal because the facts don’t back up any of it and it makes no sense. (The only other person he put on trial was acquitted too.)
And lest we forget, the Mueller Report also found that Trump obstructed the investigation over and over again, obviously leading to even more suspicion that he must be trying to hide something. What innocent person acts the way Trump acted?
None of that apparently affected Durham (and former Attorney General Bill Barr’s) pre-conceived conclusion that the investigation was unjustified from the get-go and the FBI was just out to get Trump. Because he has no facts, his report is little more than innuendo and insinuations, offering up nothing of substance that wasn’t already revealed in the earlier Department of Justice Inspector General’s report.
Needless to say, the reaction among Republicans was insane, starting with Trump himself who posted this on his social media platform:
THEY ARE SCUM, LIKE COCKROACHES ALL OVER WASHINGTON, D.C. Congratulations to John Durham on a Report that is being praised for its quality, importance, and professionalism, by friend and foe alike!”
You knew he would say that no matter what was actually in the report. After all, he claimed total vindication from the Mueller Report as well. And, as happened then, he was supported by the Republican establishment despite the fact that many of them know better:
The Durham Report that dropped yesterday is a 316-page roadmap of the Democrat effort to weaponize a misinformation campaign against Donald Trump.
We now know that 1) Hillary Clinton approved and orchestrated the Russia collusion narrative, which Obama knew about and 2) Our…
“It’s a top law enforcement agency that didn’t follow the laws,.To see what happened is unthinkable. Heads need to roll over this. Anybody that touched it or had a part in it needs to be fired and every one of their senior managers needs to be fired. The FBI has lost complete credibility when it comes to this and they have a lot of fixing to do to get the trust back of the American people.”
DeSantis too:
The Durham Report confirmed what we already knew: weaponized federal agencies manufactured a false conspiracy theory about Trump-Russia collusion. It reminds us of the need to clean house at these agencies, as they've never been held accountable for this egregious abuse of power.
Unfortunately, some members of the mainstream media are helping to validate these lies. Media Matters tracked how CNN’s initial reaction, contending that the report is “devastating to the FBI” and “to an extent exonerates Donald Trump” was used as proof among numerous right wing media outlets, activists and even QAnon influencers that Trump was right all along. Even Fox got in on the action:
Fox & Friends personalities praised Tapper’s commentary. After airing a video of Tapper, co-host Brian Kilmeade said, “Did you ever think you’d hear that on CNN? It does exonerate Donald Trump! Sure. The last person you’d think to do that!”
That’s going to be the right wing narrative from now on and apparently, CNN is going to carry that line as well. Even so, some activists are unhappy with John Durham, proving that no good deed goes unpunished. Judicial Watch put out a statement that concludes with this:
Durham let down the American people with few and failed prosecutions. Never in American history has so much government corruption faced so little accountability. Let me be clear, the FBI and Justice Department – and their political masters in the Obama White House – are responsible for the worst government corruption in American history. President Trump is a crime victim who was targeted by a seditious conspiracy by Obama, Biden, Clinton and their Deep State allies.
If it was only Donald Trump bellowing about this maybe we could just breathe a sign of relief that the “investigation of the investigation” is finally over and everyone will shut up about this nonsense. But since all the GOP presidential candidates have jumped on the bandwagon, we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the Deep State’s “weaponization” of politics, all because the Republican party just can’t quit the criminal miscreant they accidentally put in the White House in 2016. It’s going to be a long campaign.
Democrats made a “catastrophic mistake” by ceding freedom as an issue to Republicans, Anand Giridharadas told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Tuesday night. From Ronald Reagan on they added “freedom” like sugary sprinkles to everything from busting unions to French fries.
Republicans came to “own” freedom through relentless branding, Giridharadas said, until Donald Trump came along with “American carnage.” In his wake, Republicans have abandoned freedom for control.
Control of womens’ bodies. Control of what we can read. Control of what we can learn. Control of whom we can marry. Control of our health care. Control of the country itself. Especially that.
Republicans have abandoned freedom for control, for authoritarians like Trump, Putin, Orbán, DeSantis, and (OMFG) Tommy Tuberville. (“He should just move to Russia. Suits him better,” tweeted Paul Rosenberg.)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) tries to sell the Durham FBI report about the Trump-Russia investigation as a smoking gun:
“If people don’t go to jail for this, the American people should just stand up and say, ‘Listen, enough’s enough. Let’s don’t have elections anymore.’” pic.twitter.com/D4Qrd1Iav1
“All of these fights are fights for freedom,” Giridharadas adds. “And often, they are reframed in these wonky policy terms by folks on the left. And we have to go guttural, and we have to remember people don’t understand what Medicare for All means except people who really focus on this issue. But they know what it means to be free.”
Freedom is something people can feel.
Republican abandonment of freedom gives Democrats a golden opportunity to reclaim it, as Giridharadas sees it. Joe Biden is trying, pushing against the tide of policy wonks.
“Freedom has always been a contested value,” says Anat Shenker-Osorio. Freedom is a winner with Americans across the political spectrum, Shenker-Osorio says of her messaging research. “It is not coincidental that freedom to vote is the name of the newer form of what was the For the People Act. That name was very deliberately chosen.”
Say it like you mean it, like your freedom is at stake. Because it is.
The North Carolina legislature banned most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy Tuesday evening, voting to override the veto of Gov. Roy Cooper (D), while a similar measure heads to a final vote in Nebraska in the coming days.
“It won’t stop here. NCGOP has repeatedly referred to this legislation as a ‘first step’. Stay engaged. And thank you to everyone who came today and sent messages of support. It means more than you know,” tweeted Rep. Lindsey Prather, a Buncombe County Democrat.
after the vote was taken tonight, folks in the gallery were loud. our right to our own bodies was just voted on. and tonight, the people just yelled. we’re tired, that’s for sure, but more than that, we’re angry. we’re motivated. and there’s a movement behind us. ✊ pic.twitter.com/CEOtlckMG9
— Anderson Clayton☀️ (@abreezeclayton) May 17, 2023
North Carolina Republicans mustered the bare minimum of votes needed for the three-fifths override with the help of “partisan gerrymandering and an inexplicable recent party switch by a previously pro-choice lawmaker,” writes Stephen Wolf at Daily Kos:
North Carolina’s legislative districts have been gerrymandered to favor Republicans to varying degrees ever since the GOP swept into power in the 2010 midterms. Because the governor lacks veto power over redistricting, the courts have been the only bulwark against Republican gerrymandering, leading to an endless cycle of litigation as the GOP’s maps would get struck down, replaced, and challenged once again.
While the courts blocked the initial maps Republicans passed after the 2020 census, GOP lawmakers responded by adopting slightly tamer gerrymanders that were used in 2022 while litigation proceeded. Despite Republicans’ modest victories in last year’s statewide elections for the U.S. Senate and other contests, Republicans came close to winning veto-proof majorities in the legislature under these revised lines, securing three-fifths of all seats in the Senate and one shy of that mark in the House.
Democrats had reason to hope the future might look different, however, after the state Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion in December ruling that partisan gerrymandering violated North Carolina’s constitution. The court consequently struck down the GOP’s state Senate map, ordering it to be redrawn for 2024. (It did, however, uphold the state House map, where the GOP’s gerrymander was more subtle.)
But that ruling did not stand for long. After flipping control of the court last year, the new Republican majority issued an unprecedented decision last month that reversed the court’s four-month-old ruling and decreed that state courts could not police partisan gerrymandering. That now gives GOP lawmakers a blank check to re-gerrymander the state from top to bottom.
The vote was entirely on party lines. Rep. Tricia Cotham, who promised her voters in November she'd vote to codify Roe., and Rep. Ted Davis, who told his voters he had no interest in weakening the 20 week ban, voted to override Cooper's veto.
North Carolina Democrats are hardly blameless. The Democratic legislative caucuses’ and state party’s candidate recruiting efforts that (as I explained previously) “were robust in 2018 and 2020 fell apart in 2022 …. They left 14 of 50 state Senate seats and 30 of 120 state House seats uncontested, likely harming turnout for the U.S. Senate and down-ticket races.” Turnout by younger voters that was solid in other states flagged in North Carolina in 2022. Democrats lost control of the state Supreme Court to Republicans. They failed to retain enough seats to sustain a Cooper veto with a cushion. Cotham happened. And here we are.
N.C. Democrats’ new state chair, Anderson Clayton, was in the building with activists Tuesday night. “Abortion activists were denied access to the gallery because anti-abortion folks had the galleries ‘reserved’ for them,” Clayton tweeted.
After the vote, Clayton, who ran on reversing the recruiting failures of 2022, launched a tweet thread:
In 2024, North Carolina Democrats will ensure every voter knows where their leaders stand on the issue of choice, bodily autonomy, and health care. We will continue to fight to elect candidates that stand up for reproductive freedom in North Carolina. #ncpol
Tonight, Republicans sent a message to North Carolinians that they don’t trust them to make their own health care decisions. SB20 is dangerous legislation that puts politicians in the middle of deeply personal health care decisions.
It abandons the medical advice of doctors who urged lawmakers to stop this ban. It will have devastating impacts on abortion access, putting up medically unnecessary barriers to reproductive care and for many – it may impact their access altogether.
It is shameful to see Republicans flip-flop and betray their constituents to toe the party line. It’s even more shameful to see their gloating faces as folks exited the gallery knowing that this bill will kill people in our state. They should be ashamed.
They won’t be. This legislation is unpopular, as the New York Times reported Monday:
A Meredith poll in February showed that 57 percent of respondents supported the state’s current 20-week ban, or would expand it. Another 35 percent wanted the procedure restricted to 15 weeks or less.
This is what minority rule looks like. Donald Trump won North Carolina in 2020 by 1.3 points. The current congressional delegation is 7-7 Republicans and Democrats. To maximize their advantage, the NCGOP will hold off revealing their re-gerrymandered 2024 maps (already drafted, to be sure) until the filing period opens in December. Expect a 10-4 Republican congressional majority (at best) and even harsher state district maps.
Since her election, Clayton has been barnstorming the state generating excitement among younger voters. Daily Kos is already raising money for the state Democratic Party to help with field organizing. Clayton will need the financial help to support candidates and local committees stop the state from becoming North Florida.
“Unless better people get involved with politics, politics doesn’t get any better,” Clayton told Pod Save America this week.
"Unless better people get involved with politics, politics doesn't get any better."
Here’s a short thread from Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post spelling it out in a nutshell:
What’s in this supposedly commonsense bill McCarthy is demanding in exchange for not destroying the global economy?
Here’s my handy guide, for those interested in the substance of the legislation and not just political gamesmanship.
1. Unspecified across-the-board cuts to nondefense discretionary spending, down by one-third on average in 2024, after inflation. The cuts would then expand to roughly 59%, on average, by 2033
Does this mean WIC? Border security? Pells? FBI? No one knows
2. Defund the tax police – make it harder for IRS to collect taxes legally owed by wealthy/corporate tax cheats, and set back the agency’s other IT upgrades.
(Would also increase deficits)
3. Medicaid work requirements – which sound nice, but are a solution in search of a problem. See Arkansas’s disastrous experiment, which did not boost employment but did cause a lot of poor working people to lose their healthcare.
4. Provision to grind entire regulatory system to a halt, by requiring Congress’s approval for all major regs. That includes deregulatory action too btw
Congress can barely do the things it’s responsible for now. Like, say, paying our existing bills
Here’s a separate thread on what happens if Republicans don’t get their way, and instead force a default.
"Financial armageddon" “Global margin call” “Bankruptcies that rival those in the Great Depression” These were some phrases used by former Treasury/Federal Reserve officials when asked about a US default. The likely fallout, in 7 terrifying steps: https://t.co/elW9YJv37L
What would “meeting in the middle” actually mean? Only 20% cuts in all discretionary spending across the board and maybe bringing the regulatory system to a partial stop? Even if that was acceptable to anyone with a brain, which it isn’t, the wingnuts won’t accept it. They are irrational. They have been told by their God Donald Trump that default is just ‘a perception” and maybe it would be good for the country!
There are three possibilities in my view. Biden gives them every last thing they want and more. Kevin McCarthy decides to fall on his sword for the good of the country and brings something to the floor over the Freedom Caucus’ objections — and loses his seat.
There’s actually a fourth possibility and that’s that they follow the 2013 model and the Treasury Dept. moves the drop dead dates back, they do some extensions with a lot of back and forth and they end up passing a clean debt ceiling next year some time because the Republican approvals are in the dirt and they’re running for re-election. Is that likely? I don’t know. But hope is not a plan…
These Republicans are too much. You wonder if they really think they can win this way and then realize they don’t. They’re just hoping he ends up in jail or embalmed:
The leading pro-DeSantis PAC surprised the political world with a single tweet after Donald Trump’s CNN town hall last week. It bluntly called out the former president for his answers on January 6th, his “rigged” election claims, “the sex abuse case” he was found liable for damages over, “his defense of his comments about grabbing women by their genitals,” and investigations into “his stash of taxpayer-owned classified documents.”
“How does this Make America Great Again?” the tweet from the official account of Never Back Down concluded.
This was the kind of all-out critique of Trump that Ron DeSantis — and most of the 2024 field — have never made themselves.
Don’t expect to hear it again, though: The tweet generated some heated internal pushback at Never Back Down, while multiple prominent conservativecommentators piled on publicly.
One DeSantis ally familiar with their thinking told Semafor that the group’s leadership “100%” recognized it as an error. A second source familiar with the situation added that they were told the tweet was sent without the approval of the PAC’s senior communications team.
AD
“That post was a massive mistake,” the first ally said. “It sounded like it came from CNN, and I think people inside realized that that was a massive mistake, and I hope it won’t be repeated again.”
In perhaps a sign of concern around how it had been received, Never Back Down also added a reply to the tweet the next morning: This one focused on DeSantis’ “impressive accomplishments” in Florida and his dedication to discussing his “great vision” for the country.
In a statement, a representative from Never Back Down called the sources’ version of events “false,” but did not name any specific errors.
“This inaccurate gossip based reporting about internal conversations and strategy at Never Back Down is false,” Steve Cortes, a spokesperson for the PAC, said in a statement. “Never Back Down remains focused on telling the incredible story of success and service of Governor Ron DeSantis and amplifying the growing grassroots calls for him to become president.”
The reporter weighs in with her analysis:
Never Back Down’s aborted attack gets to a core obstacle for DeSantis and indeed all of Trump’s Republican challengers: How do they attack him without sounding like Democrats to Republican voters?
Entire categories of what would be go-to attacks against any other candidate are effectively forbidden. DeSantis backed off almost immediately after a brief mention of Trump’s hush money payments to an adult film actress. He strongly defended him from his indictment in New York, from an FBI search on his Mar-a-Lago home that turned up hundreds of classified documents, and has avoided getting into topics related to other investigations. Even as DeSantis boasts on the pre-campaign trail that he’s a “winner,” he still hasn’t taken a clear stance on the most fundamental part of any electability argument: That his opponent lost the previous election.
Primary voters have long been conditioned to see discussion of Trump’s issues with the law, or January 6th, or women as liberal obsessions designed to drag down the party, not issues to be litigated in a contest between Republicans. After CNN’s town hall, for example, the network’s focus group of attendees bemoaned that the hosts kept bringing up his 2020 election claims: “Couldn’t the media ask him a question about 2024?” one voter asked.
This reflects my own experience on the trail in recent months: Republican voters rarely cite Trump’s personal or legal issues as prime arguments against him or even topics that they’re concerned about (the furthest they’ll usually go is to note that they’re tired of the “drama”). Issues like the economy, parental control over what’s taught in schools, or the border are much more likely to come up first.
Right. They just care about “the issues” because they are very serious people. Just build the autobahn Adolph! That’s all that matters.
She asks what’s left to criticize Trump over if you take all that off the table. It’s pretty this gruel:
DeSantis and his supporters have telegraphed some likely lines of attack aimed at hitting him solely from the right.
There’s electability, where DeSantis has recently criticized a “culture of losing” in the party without naming Trump, while warning Republicans will lose again if they “get distracted and focus the election on the past or on other side issues.”
And then there’s competence: DeSantis has hinted at attacking Trump from the right on COVID-19, in particular, saying repeatedly that he would have fired Dr. Anthony Fauci and resisted health guidance from CDC officials.
DeSantis has tried to call out Trump for attacking fellow Republicans as well, saying his criticisms of his record on Social Security and Medicare amount to “Democrat attacks” that damage the party.
Yeah, that’s really hitting him where it hurts. He’s damaging the party. Because Republicans really give a damn about that. And as far as the electability argument goes, I’m afraid they are overlooking something important: the vast majority of the GOP thinks Trump actually won! And these morons won’t tell them any different. So, the “culture of losing” argument is just a tad dissonant, don’t you think?
Probably not. They are clearly rooting for a horse race and frankly, they seem to want to take Biden down a peg for reasons that elude me. (He doesn’t abuse them to their faces the way they like it?) Whatever he case they went crazy over that poll that showed Trump Beating Biden even though it’s conclusions were called into questions and they polled “adults” which is a very sloppy way to poll a presidential race.
Anyway, a number of polls have come out since and they haven’t said much about them. I suppose it’s because
