Politics

Court-Packing Common Sense

There is chatter these days among Democrats about Court-packing. While the norm that there should be nine and only nine Justices is entitled to great respect, I am not going to sit here and say that there can never be an exception. The present circumstances, though, are not at all exceptional.When Court-packing (or Lords-packing in Great Britain) was seriously considered in the past, the proponents had won multiple successive elections by considerable margins. As a result, they could credibly cl...
Tags: Congress, White House, Court, Branding, Great Britain, Democratic, Gerard N Magliocca, Merrick Garland

Trump investigation: Former White House aide Hope Hicks ‘to cooperate’ with Democrat probe

Former senior White House official Hope Hicks is said to have agreed to cooperate with a Democratic-led congressional investigation into Donald Trump. Ms Hicks, 30, who was considered one of the president’s closest confidantes and who served as White House communications director from the summer of 2017 to the spring of last year, has reportedly said she will provide documents to a congressional committee looking into possible obstruction of justice by Mr Trump. CNN said Democratic congressman...
Tags: News, White House, Cnn, Fbi, James Comey, Trump, Democratic, Hope Hicks, Donald Trump Jr, Michael Flynn, Hicks, Jerry Nadler, Donald Trump Ms Hicks, House of Representative 's judiciary committee

Beto O'Rourke raises $6.1m in first 24 hours, smashing Bernie Sanders' record

Stunning sum is more than every other Democratic challenger who has disclosed their first-day totalsDemocratic hopeful Beto O’Rourke raised an unprecedented $6.1m during the first 24 hours of his official run for the White House, his campaign announced on Monday. Related: Republicans resurface Beto O’Rourke DUI mugshot in St Patrick's Day attack Continue reading...
Tags: White House, US news, Democrats, US politics, US political financing, Bernie Sanders, Democratic, Beto O'Rourke, US elections 2020

Beto O'Rourke raises $6.1m in first 24 hours, smashing Bernie Sanders' record

Stunning sum is more than every other Democratic challenger who has disclosed their first-day totals The former Texas congressman, like Sanders and some of his other colleagues, has shunned Pac donations of any kind. Photograph: Kathy Willens/APDemocratic hopeful Beto O’Rourke raised an unprecedented $6.1m during the first 24 hours of his official run for the White House, his campaign announced on Monday.The stunning sum is more than rival Bernie Sanders and every other 2020 Democratic rival wh...
Tags: New York, Texas, News, Minnesota, Maryland, Congress, Colorado, California, Washington, Senate, White House, Iraq, India, US, Barack Obama, Syria

Morning Docket: 03.18.19

* Sorry, bro, but one of them doesn’t like beer anymore: The Tenth Circuit denied 20 appeals of its earlier decision to dismiss misconduct complaints against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but this time, the panel was split, with one judge saying the "entire council should be disqualified." [National Law Journal] * "It’s not enough to legalize marijuana at the federal level — we should also help those who have suffered due to its prohibition." If you're a Democratic candidate running for presiden...
Tags: Politics, Supreme Court, Law, Marijuana, Nbc News, Diversity, New York Times, Gloria Allred, Thomson Reuters, Trump, Preet Bharara, Democratic, Election 2020, Sonia Sotomayor, Southern District of New York, Tenth Circuit

Joe Biden's verbal slip sets off speculation of presidential run

Democratic party favourite tells crowd he has ‘the most progressive record of anybody running’A verbal slip by Democratic favourite Joe Biden has left party faithful wondering: did the former US vice-president accidentally reveal his plans to run for the White House?In a keynote speech at a dinner for the Delaware Democratic party on Saturday, Biden boasted that he has “the most progressive record of anybody running”. The only problem is that Biden hasn’t announced whether he will launch a third...
Tags: White House, US, Joe Biden, US news, Democrats, US politics, Biden, Delaware, Democratic, US elections 2020

What socialism is — according to Michael Harrington

Michael Harrington was a public intellectual who strove to help the poor and inspired a generation of socialists. He was the first chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, and nearly ran for president in 1980. While he is far from the only influential thinker on the American left, his ideas have had an outsized influence over the last sixty years. The United States is seeing a renewed interest in left-wing ideas. Chicago might have five socialists on its city council by April, a democra...
Tags: Politics, Sweden, Activism, Democracy, Germany, America, Economics, Poverty, Chicago, United States, Capitalism, Innovation, Ussr, Karl Marx, Cuba, Bernie Sanders

Agustin Huneeus Jr. — charged in the college admissions scandal — "has been a popular big money-political donor to California’s Congressional Democrats from the San Francisco Bay Area, and Napa Valley."

The California Globe reports:In 2016, his family hosted a Democratic mega-donor lunch and wine pairing at their Quintessa Winery for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, with Google’s executive chairman Schmidt as the luncheon speaker.... Huneeus has made seven contributions to House Speaker Nancy Pelois (D-San Francisco), totaling $18,300, and $10,000 to Pelosi’s political action committee, PAC to the Future....Agustin also made:six contributions to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-San Francisco), totaling $21,600.six lar...
Tags: Google, Law, California, San Francisco, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, House, PAC, Ethnicity, Nancy Pelosi, Globe, Campaign Finance, San Francisco Bay Area, Democratic, Democratic Party, Napa Valley

Abrams And Biden Meet Privately As Both Weigh 2020 Election Possibilities

ATLANTA (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams met privately Thursday in Washington, bringing together two starkly different faces of their party as they both weigh their political futures. Biden, 76, who served as President Barack Obama’s closest adviser, is on the cusp of deciding whether he’ll make his third run for the presidency. Abrams, 45, narrowly lost the Georgia governor’s race last November. She is being heavily recruited to run for the Senate in 2...
Tags: New York, Texas, News, California, Washington, Senate, White House, Barack Obama, Atlanta, Georgia, Joe Biden, Ap, House, New Jersey, Associated Press, Biden

Vulnerable 2020 Senate Republicans Stick With Trump On Border Declaration

A dozen Senate Republicans voted to end President Trump’s emergency declaration on Thursday. But those with the most to lose from Trump’s unpopularity stood by their man. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was the only one of the Senate Republicans who face potentially tough 2020 reelection races broke with Trump on the vote. Sens. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Thom Tillis (R-NC), David Perdue (R-GA), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) all voted to protect his emergency declaration....
Tags: News, Senate, White House, Nancy Pelosi, Dc, Trump, Democratic, Donald J Trump, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Gardner, Cory Gardner, Tillis, Thom Tillis, Sen Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Martha McSally

In the Woke War against Beto, Root for Beto

Earlier this morning, Robert “Beto” O’Rourke announced that he’s running for president, and there are two things I believe with equal intensity. First, I don’t want Beto to be president. He’s a culturally left economic progressive who may be the serious candidate closest to an actual open-borders position on immigration. Second, I don’t want to see the Democratic party become so radical — and so obsessed with matters of race and privilege — that even Beto is too “moderate” to win.So, in the woke...
Tags: Florida, News, Obama, Washington Post, Mexico, Senate, White House, America, Cnn, Gop, House, Ted Cruz, New York Times, Ohio, Philadelphia, Msnbc

Bernie Sanders Boosts Foreign Policy Cred For 2020 With Yemen Vote Win

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) scored a major victory on Thursday when the Senate passed his resolution to end U.S. involvement in the Yemen civil war — one that could help his 2020 prospects. The Senate passed a resolution to defund America’s support for the Saudi-led efforts in the humanitarian disaster, a rare bipartisan rebuke to President Trump’s cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia. Sanders has led on this issue for years, working closely with Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) to ...
Tags: News, Obama, Congress, Saudi Arabia, Senate, White House, Iraq, America, Hillary Clinton, Dc, Biden, Yemen, Ali, Bernie Sanders, Clinton, Trump

O'Rourke enters race with natural skills, eager support and some big challenges

Former congressman from El Paso enters a crowded Democratic field – can he solidify his platform and take it to a national level? * Follow the latest US politics newsBeto O’Rourke in El Paso, Texas, on 11 February 2019. Photograph: Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty ImagesLosing a federal election in your home state is not normally seen as a ticket to the White House. But then not everybody is capable of being defeated in the style of Beto O’Rourke.The former congressman from El Paso, the city on the US-Mexi...
Tags: Texas, News, Obamacare, Congress, Washington Post, Senate, White House, Elizabeth Warren, US, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Guardian, US Senate, Capitol Hill, Donald Trump, Oprah

Cory Booker: Ivy League elite or hunger-striking hero?

The New Jersey senator wants to take on Trump in 2020, but what sort of president would he be? His background offers many mixed clues Cory Booker takes selfies after a campaign event in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images Cory Booker came to national attention in 2002, fighting an election against incredible odds. In the contest for mayor of Newark, New Jersey, he faced both an entrenched incumbent who would later go to jail for corruption and an entire political ma...
Tags: Mark Zuckerberg, News, Obama, Congress, Stanford, America, Barack Obama, David Cameron, Hillary Clinton, Judaism, Yale, New York Times, Iowa, New Jersey, Oxford, US Senate

The Emerging Democratic Minority

The biases of the media are so pervasive that there is little recognition of the steady disintegration of the Democrats, though it is occurring every day. Rational and intelligent members of the center-Left write to me every week with new concerns about where the Left is going. The Democratic National Committee’s decision not to allow Fox News to put on one of their candidates’ debates confirms the weakness of the party and of its leaders. The process of atomizing society into smaller and smalle...
Tags: New York, Texas, Rachel Maddow, News, California, Washington, White House, Elizabeth Warren, America, Joe Biden, Neil Kinnock, Ted Cruz, House Of Representatives, Jeb Bush, Ohio, Fox News

Trump’s Budget Shows Few Policy Ambitions, Many Campaign Talking Points

WASHINGTON (AP) — Frustrated by a divided Congress and rifts within his own party, President Donald Trump is giving little indication in his latest budget proposal of any new policy ambitions for the coming two, or six, years. Trump’s budget plan increases spending on his border wall and the military but is light on fresh ideas heading into his re-election campaign. His budget for the next fiscal year, which has little chance of advancing in Congress, largely focuses on deep spending cuts and...
Tags: Budget, News, Supreme Court, Obamacare, Congress, Washington, Senate, White House, Barack Obama, Ap, Gop, Capitol Hill, Donald Trump, Trump, Barry Bennett, Democratic

Trump Stages Another Fiscal Battle With New Budget Seeking Billions For Wall

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is reviving his border wall fight, preparing a new budget that will seek $8.6 billion for his signature project, impose steep spending cuts to other domestic programs and set the stage for another fiscal battle. Budget documents like the one Trump is releasing Monday are often seen as just a starting point of negotiation. Fresh off the longest government shutdown in history, Trump’s 2020 proposal shows he is eager to confront Congress again to boost def...
Tags: New York, Budget, News, Congress, Washington, Mexico, Kentucky, Senate, White House, America, Budget Deficit, Ap, Gop, House, Fox News, Capitol Hill

"The Six Wings Of The Democratic Party."

According to FiveThirtyEight:The Super Progressives — Very liberal on economic and identity/cultural issues, anti-establishment... Prominent examples: Ocasio-Cortez , Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin.... People in this bloc generally see the Democratic Party as too centrist and too cautious...The Very Progressives — Very liberal on economic issues, fairly liberal on identity issues, skeptical of the Democratic establishment. Prominent examples: Bill de Blasio, Sen. Jeff...
Tags: Minnesota, Law, Obama, Oregon, Virginia, Barack Obama, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Democratic, Democratic Party, Pelosi, FiveThirtyEight, Josh Gottheimer, Mark Pocan

Making (belated) case for a Prez to "choose nominees who will help dismantle mass incarceration"

James Forman has this notable new New York Times op-ed about Supreme Court nominations and the field of potential challengers to Prez Trump under the full headline "The Democratic Candidates Should Tell Us Now Who They’ll Put on the Supreme Court. And they should choose nominees who will help dismantle mass incarceration."  I recommend the piece in full, and here are excerpts: In a country that locks up more of its citizens than any other, we should demand that candidates for president have a p...
Tags: Supreme Court, Law, Obama, Alabama, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, New York Times, Donald Trump, Trump, Democratic, Alexander, Sonia Sotomayor, Prez Obama, Garland, Thurgood Marshall, Bryan Stevenson

"Omar says the 'hope and change' offered by Barack Obama was a mirage."

"Recalling the 'caging of kids' at the U.S.-Mexico border and the 'droning of countries around the world' on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor. 'We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,' Omar says. 'And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t...
Tags: Law, Obama, Mexico, Barack Obama, Trump, Democratic, Omar, Democratic Party, Ann Althouse, Ilhan Omar, Left-wing Ideology, Obama and the military, Obama and immigration, Dean Phillips, Obama attacked from the left, Democratic Party Politico

Rep. Ilhan Omar to speak at Woodland Hills banquet ’empowering Valley Muslims’

Freshman congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar is set to step away from a storm swirling around her in Washington and into the San Fernando Valley on March 23, to be a featured speaker at a Council on American-Islamic Relations fundraising event attended by members of the Valley’s American Muslim community. But the Democratic legislator from Minnesota, popular among progressives, may find find herself facing some of the same enmity from L.A. area conservatives and Jewish community members, with a protes...
Tags: Politics, News, Minnesota, Congress, Washington, Israel, America, Sport, Soccer, Gop, House Of Representatives, Hilton, Hamas, Pasadena, Local News, Muslim Brotherhood

Michael Bloomberg: former New York mayor will not run for president in 2020

Billionaire Bloomberg, who backs gun control and climate change causes, has pledged his wealth to the Trump resistanceThe former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced he will not run for president in 2020. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesMichael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor and champion of causes such as gun control and climate change, has ended months of speculation by announcing that he will not run for US president next year.The 77-year-old, one of the...
Tags: New York, News, Congress, Senate, White House, New York City, US, America, Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, New York Times, Howard Schultz, Un, Starbucks, Donald Trump

Trump investigation in House to be led by prosecutor ‘comfortable charging him with felony campaign finance fraud’

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has hired Daniel Goldman, former Assistant US Attorney from the Southern District of New York, to spearhead an investigation into Donald Trump’s White House administration. Mr Goldman began serving as a senior adviser and director of investigations last month after being hired by Adam Schiff, the committee’s Democratic chairman.
Tags: News, White House, US, House, Donald Trump, Goldman, Trump, Democratic, Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Southern District of New York, Daniel Goldman

Presidential candidate Julian Castro offers a blue vision of America to students at UCLA

Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro speaks to about 450 students in Moore Hall at UCLA in Los Angeles, CA, on Monday, Mar 4, 2019. Castro, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama, outlined his priorities if he were to win. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG) Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro speaks to about 450 students in Moore Hall at UCLA in Los Angeles, CA, on Monday, Mar 4, 2019. Castro, the Secretary of Housing a...
Tags: Obama, California, Elizabeth Warren, America, Los Angeles, Barack Obama, Sport, Soccer, United States, Paris, Medicare, San Antonio, Castro, Ucla, Trump, Democratic

Trump Admin Still Resisting Giving Some Voter Fraud Commission Docs To Ex-Member

It’s been well over a year since President Trump’s bogus voter fraud commission was disbanded. But the administration is still fighting in court efforts to get it to turn over certain internal documents from the commission to a Democratic member who sued to have access to them. Back in December 2017, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap (D) won a preliminary injunction order requiring the administration to provide him the requested documents. Days later, the commission was disbanded, but liti...
Tags: News, Washington, White House, Maine, Commission, Department Of Justice, Justice Department, Trump, Democratic, Mike Pence, Tierney Sneed, Pence, Dunlap, Matthew Dunlap, Matt Dunlap, Hans Von Spakovsky

Democratic Presidential Candidates Marking ‘Bloody Sunday’ Anniversary in Selma

SELMA, Alabama (AP) — Several Democratic White House hopefuls are gathering at one of America’s seminal civil rights sites on Sunday to pay homage to that legacy and highlight their own connections to the movement. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who already are in the 2020 race, and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who could soon join them, are scheduled to participate in events surrounding the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama. On March 7, 1965, peac...
Tags: John Lewis, News, Supreme Court, Congress, Washington, White House, Alabama, America, Georgia, Hillary Clinton, Selma, House, New Jersey, Ohio, Associated Press, North Carolina

Why are we still debating the merits of socialism?

SACRAMENTO – In the 1970s, my dad flew from his home in Pennsylvania to a medical center in Houston to have a then-innovative bypass surgery that extended his life by more than three decades. At the same time, my wife’s family was sending bottles of aspirin to their relatives in the Polish socialist paradise. That dichotomy — Americans receiving cutting-edge medical care even as Eastern Europeans were lacking the rudimentary medicines — always stuck in my mind as I’ve written about political sys...
Tags: Post, Texas, California, Washington Post, Opinion, Sacramento, Barack Obama, Tesla, Sport, Bbc, Soccer, Pennsylvania, United States, Portland, Cambodia, Miami

Democrat Party Leaders Are Sick in the Head ~ VIDEO Proof

Opinion USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Two weeks ago, leader of the Socialist Party, (formerly known as Democrat Party) and current Speaker of the House of Representatives, said this: “I know the Republicans have some unease about it, no matter what they say. Because if the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people. You want to talk ab...
Tags: Usa, New York, Guns, White House, America, House, House Of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo, Cuomo, Trump, Democratic, Pelosi, Democrat Party, Socialist Party, Mark Walters

House Dems Move Quickly To Roll Back Trump Emergency, Pass Torch To Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are moving quickly to try to roll back President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to siphon billions of dollars from the military to fund construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Tuesday’s vote in the Democratic-controlled House comes on legislation to revoke Trump’s executive order from earlier this month and would send it to the Republican-held Senate, where it would take only a handful of GOP defections to pass it. Trump is likely ...
Tags: News, Congress, California, Washington, Mexico, Senate, White House, Ap, Gop, United States, Alaska, House, Nebraska, Pentagon, Chuck Hagel, Nancy Pelosi

Democrat-led House passes bill blocking Trump’s national emergency declaration on border wall

Democrats ignored a veto threat and rammed legislation through the House Tuesday that would stymie President Donald Trump’s bid for billions of extra dollars for his border wall, escalating a clash over whether he was abusing his powers to advance his paramount campaign pledge. The House’s 245-182 vote to block Trump’s national emergency declaration throws the political hot potato to the Republican-run Senate, where there were already enough GOP defections to edge it to the cusp of passage. Vice...
Tags: Politics, Texas, News, Congress, Mexico, La, Senate, White House, US, Barack Obama, Sport, Soccer, Gop, Maine, South Dakota, Alaska