Odds that Bush and Walker each seem to have of “winning the nomination — call it 35 percent for each. There’s maybe a 1-in-5, or 20 percent, chance that the nod will go to any tea-party candidate, so let’s give Cruz and Paul each a 10 percent chance. The rest of the field gets the remaining 10 percent; right now, that’s what I estimate is the likelihood that someone other than one of the aforementioned four will win the nomination,” predicts Charlie Cook.
As a political campaign financier, he was a fail,
But Dinesh D’Souza rails against Hillary’s email.
But it’s he who’s smellin’
Like a convicted felon,
When he calls Clinton “lawless” while HE’S in jail!
There’s a kind of lawlessness that seems to be at large here.”
— Wingnut Dinesh D’Souza, commenting on Hillary Clinton’s email kerfuffle via Skype from a “community confinement center” while serving an eight-month sentence for violating campaign-finance laws, reports Mediaite. Despite the convicted felon’s assertion, legal analysts from both The Wall Street Journal and Fox News agree that Clinton did not break any actual laws by using a nongovernment email address to conduct official business.
The number of jobs the U.S. economy added to payrolls in February, and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.5%, Bloomberg reports. “The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 96 economists projected employment would rise by 235,000… The jobless rate was projected to drop to 5.6% from January’s 5.7%.”
A brief note to my Republican friends; go dark. Seriously. Stop talking. … The Clinton machine in all its arrogance and inertia is careening toward political disaster as the story of her illegal private email servers collides with a Washington and New York press corps that can’t, for once, easily look away. The story has a lot more stink in it than even what’s come to light so far. Only the GOP and conservatives can save her. … The press is possessed of a boundless desire to Change the Subject right now, and some intemperate remark would fit the bill perfectly. Don’t give them a shiny object… For God’s sake, take a deep breath and skip talking about your favorite social issue.
Number of Republican legislators planning to attend the Selma, Ala., commemoration this weekend, Politico reports. “Scores of U.S. lawmakers are converging on tiny Selma, Alabama, for a large commemoration of a civil rights anniversary. But their ranks don’t include a single member of House Republican leadership — a point that isn’t lost on congressional black leaders.”
Number of states where Democrats control both legislative chambers, down from 34 states in 1982 and 27 as recently as 2010, though that number had fluctuated in the years in between. Meanwhile, Republicans have gained a total of 888 legislative seats since 2009, and control both chambers in a record-high 30 states. In eight other states, each party controls one chamber.
How many of you have got wolves in your district? None. None. Not one. They haven’t got a damn wolf in their whole district. I’d like to introduce them in your district. If I introduced them in your district, you wouldn’t have a homeless problem anymore.
— Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who supports taking the grey wolf off the endangered species list, the Washington Post reports.
Amount Miami billionaire auto dealer and longtime Rubio benefactor Norman Braman will put into a pro-Rubio super PAC if the Florida senator decides to run, according to people familiar with his plans, the Washington Post reports.
The recent news out of Kentucky was just awful,
They found the senator unconscious and horizontal.
And since his hospitalization,
There’s been little news about his condition,
But now everybody’s having a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell.
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
An Associated Press-NORC survey found that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable opinion of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, compared with 39% who view him unfavorably. By contrast, just 32% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while 59% said they have a negative view.
“Their New Deal is socialism for the super-rich (and their own enrichment) even if it means increasing poverty, inequality, and illness at home and around the world. They also want to rewrite history to ignore and outright deny our past flaws while banning books that say otherwise from our libraries. And they select even our military leaders based on their version of political correctness over ability.”
— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by Deadline, in his July 4th message.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
A Reuters analysis of Trump’s public comments from June 23 through July 6 (13 days) — when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won their party’s primaries in New York — found he invoked communism 81 times.