News of the Day III

[pete]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9632476.html

Any chance Maxwell tells prosecutors what she knows about Trump??

Doubt very much she will say a peep that's damaging to his interests until a Democratic administration is in power.

[pete]

NEW Senate Polls

#AZSen:
Kelly (D) 51% (+9)
McSally (R-inc) 42%

#NCSen:
Cunningham (D) 48% (+8)
Tillis (R-inc) 40%

#MESen:
Gideon (D) 47% (+5)
Collins (R-inc) 42%

@ppppolls

https://twitter.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1286708174184222720?s=20

Along with flipping Colorado, which is highly likely at this juncture, these three seats plus a Biden victory flips the Senate. With that said, Democrats would do well to keep pushing hard in the second tier (IA, GA-Regular, MT) and third tier (GA-Special, AK, TX, KS, SC) races because they probably need to get to 52 seats to safely overturn the filibuster (Manchin has said he won't play ball and Sinema could also be problemmatic) and to make their majority hard to flip in the 2022 midterms. The map is, on balance, favorable to Democrats in the Senate in 2022, so if they can get to 52-53 seats it will be really difficult for Republicans to get the majority back until at least 2024, which may lead McConnell to retire.

[Donnie D]

Congressman Vern Buchanan’s aid dies from COVID. His office is one floor above my old office. They were sanitizing the building and I’m hoping that no one from my old office was exposed.

[pete]

I should also say that those three second tier races may be second tier in name only given there's polling there showing Greenfield, Ossoff, and Bullock as competitive and, in some cases, holding small leads.

Senate races have a tendency to break mostly all one way or another, and in this case with a top of ticket candidate for POTUS running approximately 8-10% ahead nationally I would expect 2-3 of these second tier races to break to the Democrats if the election were held today.

And, if Trump continues to run 8-10% behind Biden between now and Labor Day, I'd expect at least one or two of those third tier races to morph into a second tier race.

[ChaseSpace]

Odds of the filibuster being shot into the moon if Dems flip the Senate?

[pete]

Odds of the filibuster being shot into the moon if Dems flip the Senate?

If Democrats get to at least 52 seats? 100%. Biden won't let McConnell do what he did to Obama.

[Donnie D]

If Democrats get to at least 52 seats? 100%. Biden won't let McConnell do what he did to Obama.

Hopefully, the filibuster goes the opposite way and it also takes 60 votes for a judge. The worst thing Reid did was eliminate the filibuster for judicial appointments.

Never, ever eliminate the filibuster.

[pete]

Hopefully, the filibuster goes the opposite way and it also takes 60 votes for a judge. The worst thing Reid did was eliminate the filibuster for judicial appointments.

Never, ever eliminate the filibuster.

You think McConnell wouldn't have? Bill Frist constantly threatened to do it, and Frist was soft compared to McConnell.

The bottom line is McConnell is an institutional arsonist, and Democrats have no choice but to be ruthless until such time as McConnell isn't around.

The whole Republican scheme for maintaining power despite being a minority party hinges on cheating to maintain control of the Judicial Branch. Why on earth Democrats should play by the rules while the Republicans rig the system against progress, I have no idea.



That means, btw, that if Biden wins the election and Democrats flip the Senate and McConnell tries to jam through Alito and/or Thomas' replacements during the lame duck the Democrats need to be gangster enough to threaten to get rid of the filibuster and pass a court packing bill through Congress to take the court from nine to eleven or thirteen justices to essentially nullify the effect of all of Trump's appointments. And I'm dead serious about that. Take a scalp for the Merrick Garland travesty. Especially if they get to, say, 53 seats. I'd take away the crowning achievement of McConnell's treachery as one more inducement to take his happy ass into retirement.

I'm for a modified filibuster, btw, a la what Tom Harkin and others had suggested over the years.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/80903-fixing-the-filibuster-sen-tom-harkin

The filibuster is anti-democratic. If you're telling me the filibuster is part of the Senate's role of being the cooling saucer of the Legislative Branch, cool. The modified filibuster takes time to winnow down to being able to get past the cloture vote by a majority and makes the process more deliberative. But, we should no longer be held hostage as a people by an institution that's inherently flawed in that it gives Wyoming and California the same representation and which is seeing its flaws further exploited by partisan hacks like Mitch McConnell who want the Senate to exist in a state of perpetual paralysis.

Biden would be a fool to allow McConnell to continue to wield the tools he needs to obstruct his ability to institute policy to fight the pandemic and have an effective economic recovery for the nakedly partisan goal of sabotaging the Democrats politically. We've already sat through that movie, and it didn't end pretty for America. It prolonged the suffering of the average American during an unnecessarily arduous recovery. It also eroded Americans' faith in the government institutions because large majorities agree on a raft of things like immigration reform, common sense gun legislation, etc. etc. and for the last decade plus we can't get a damned thing fixed because of the Senate. You can't fix that perception of the government being useless until you fix the Senate.

[pete]

Generic Congressional Balloit is now D+10 on our daily
@civiqs tracker—the biggest Democratic lead in four years of tracking the question (we had it at +6 in 2018 cycle, 50-44).

https://twitter.com/markos/status/1286697231781773312?s=20

So, there's an argument to be made America is even more in favor of Democrats being in charge in 2020 than they were in 2018, which was in of itself a historically significant wave election. Two tsunamis in a row.

Let's war game this out. If the state of this race doesn't alter significantly between now and Election Day, you could reasonably see:

- Biden electorally club Trump like a baby seal by something along the lines of a 54/44 margin and even take the two largest red states (Texas and Georgia) and flip them blue in the process.

- Democrats move into a 53 or 54 seat majority in the Senate.

- Democrats expand their House majority by picking off a raft of suburban districts that they didn't contest in 2018 because they were Trump +8-10 districts that are now bluing at an exponential rate. Say the Democrats pick up a net 6-12 additional seats to pad out their majorities, and consolidate their PVI advantage in a lot of the urban and suburban districts they already hold.

- Pick up enough state houses and/or governorships to be in a far better position to resist Republican gerrymandering attempts in redistricting than they were after the 2010 midterm debacle.

That a mandate to lead. That's a mandate to return functioning government to Washington DC and end the gridlock and insanity that has been Congress over the past 15 or so years:

- Pass a historic infrastructure and stimulus bill.
- Pass a public option for health care.
- Pass immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.
- Pass common sense gun reform.
- Pass a climate change bill.
- Pass a new and expanded Voting Rights Act.

These are all things that, generally, people have wanted in this country for years and have felt disillusioned with their government for not being able to get them done. These are all things that, under the circumstances, the Democrats should feel empowered to move through within the first 100 days.

Why would you give Mitch McConnell a veto over any of that? Especially when two of those things (immigration reform and a new and expanded VRA) would put Democrats in a structurally advantaged position in the long haul to continue this progressive progress we've been pushing toward since the 2006 midterms? Especially when coupled with disentangling a lot of Republican gerrymandering advantages they've enjoyed the last decade?

No vetoes for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. None. If voters repudiate the Republicans to the tune the data suggests they might, he simply does not deserve that power. Quite the contrary. If I were Chuck Schumer I'd make it my business to torture Mitch McConnell professionally until he begged for retirement.

[Puckhead]

https://twitter.com/markos/status/12...781773312?s=20

So, there's an argument to be made America is even more in favor of Democrats being in charge in 2020 than they were in 2018, which was in of itself a historically significant wave election. Two tsunamis in a row.

Let's war game this out. If the state of this race doesn't alter significantly between now and Election Day, you could reasonably see:

- Biden electorally club Trump like a baby seal by something along the lines of a 54/44 margin and even take the two largest red states (Texas and Georgia) and flip them blue in the process.

- Democrats move into a 53 or 54 seat majority in the Senate.

- Democrats expand their House majority by picking off a raft of suburban districts that they didn't contest in 2018 because they were Trump +8-10 districts that are now bluing at an exponential rate. Say the Democrats pick up a net 6-12 additional seats to pad out their majorities, and consolidate their PVI advantage in a lot of the urban and suburban districts they already hold.

- Pick up enough state houses and/or governorships to be in a far better position to resist Republican gerrymandering attempts in redistricting than they were after the 2010 midterm debacle.

That a mandate to lead. That's a mandate to return functioning government to Washington DC and end the gridlock and insanity that has been Congress over the past 15 or so years:

- Pass a historic infrastructure and stimulus bill.
- Pass a public option for health care.
- Pass immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.
- Pass common sense gun reform.
- Pass a climate change bill.
- Pass a new and expanded Voting Rights Act.

These are all things that, generally, people have wanted in this country for years and have felt disillusioned with their government for not being able to get them done. These are all things that, under the circumstances, the Democrats should feel empowered to move through within the first 100 days.

Why would you give Mitch McConnell a veto over any of that? Especially when two of those things (immigration reform and a new and expanded VRA) would put Democrats in a structurally advantaged position in the long haul to continue this progressive progress we've been pushing toward since the 2006 midterms? Especially when coupled with disentangling a lot of Republican gerrymandering advantages they've enjoyed the last decade?

No vetoes for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. None. If voters repudiate the Republicans to the tune the data suggests they might, he simply does not deserve that power. Quite the contrary. If I were Chuck Schumer I'd make it my business to torture Mitch McConnell professionally until he begged for retirement.

From your lips to......

[Donnie D]

It was a disaster for the Dems after Reid ended the filibuster on judges. That will go down as Reids worst move.

Be careful what you wish for. What goes around comes around.

[pete]

Be careful what you wish for. What goes around comes around.

It's already come around. There's a stolen 5-4 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. There's a POTUS in the White House that lost the popular vote and was installed by a confluence of voter suppression and the aid of a hostile foreign power who has tear gassed priests and pregnant mothers to distract from the fact his mismanagement has led to 145,000 Americans taking a dirt nap in the last 4-5 months.

Please explain to me how being docile, compliant Democrats makes things better.

Republicans are drowning right now. Throw the motherfuckers an anchor and be done with them. And the "anchor" isn't even anything sordid or to be ashamed of. The "anchor" simply advocating for policies that support little "d" democracy and doing a lot of the common sense things most Americans have wanted done for years. That those things will break the back of the GOP for a generation is just a bonus.

[pete]

McConnell says stimulus deal could take ‘a few weeks,’ putting millions with expiring jobless aid in limbo

The temporary $600 weekly benefit expires next week, and Republicans are seeking a way to scale it back

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/24/unemployment-benefits-congress-coronavirus/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_bailoutunemployment-450pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

It's almost as if the Republicans want to lose by 12-15 points nationally.

We're already probably in a second dip if you look at unemployment claims in the last week. If they delay, they're burning down the economy and the voters will blame Trump and McConnell. Democrats passed their extension bill out of the House in freaking MAY.

[pete]

Tsunami warning for Republicans

Republicans are inching closer to a political wipeout, losing complete control of power in Washington. The way things are going, the 2018 midterms may end up looking like a GOP high water mark.

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/708658?unlock=XZMW5BGIJVUT6MJF

Ironic that DubDub's "barely a ripple" foolishness may have been oddly prescient, relatively speaking. Either way, Democrats have to smell the blood in the water and act accordingly...

+ YouTube Video

[Donnie D]

And how much better would the judiciary be with a 60 vote requirement? Had Harry Reid not ended the filibuster, Kavanaugh and all those 35 year old judges that now have life appointments wouldn’t be on the court.

And how much better would we be without a Betsy DeVos running education?

These people are only there because of the lunacy of Harry Reid in ending the filibuster.