“To find a clue about what might have gone wrong with Georgia’s election last fall, look no further than voting machine No. 3 at the Winterville Train Depot outside Athens,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. “On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each of the other six machines in that precinct, Democrats won every race. The odds of an anomaly that large are less than 1 in 1 million.”
With two new polls out this morning before the DNC’s qualifying deadline, it appears that next month’s Democratic presidential debate will be limited to just ten candidates: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro and Andrew Yang. The debate is scheduled for September 12.
“Unlike in the past, where we were unified and drew in allies, currently our own commons seems to be breaking apart. What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries; it is our internal divisiveness. We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions.”
— Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis speaks out for the first time since resigning his post in a Wall Street Journal essay.
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds 65% of Democratic primary voters would be more likely to support a candidate who wants to institute a single-payer health care system like Medicare for All, while 13% said they’d be less likely to back a candidate based on that support.
“President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules. … He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly.”
“If true, that would explain every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin.”
— Lawrence O’Donnell, responding to reports a source close to Deutsche Bank told MSNBC that President Trump’s tax returns show he pays very little income tax and, more importantly, that his loans have Russian billionaires as co-signers.
“President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago,” the Washington Post reports. “The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it up to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known as the ‘roadless rule’ that has survived a decades-long legal assault.”
“Log Cabin was once a civil rights organization with conservative principles. That’s why I joined on. Now it’s mostly about happy hours.”
— Jerri Ann Henry, the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, resigning following a controversial decision by the organization’s board to endorse President Trump, the Washington Blade reports.
Attorney General William Barr booked President Trump’s D.C. hotel for a 200-person holiday party in December that is likely to deliver Trump’s business more than $30,000 in revenue, the Washington Post reports.
“The Trump administration is pulling $271 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico,” NBC News reports.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“In America today‚ 2024, women have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump. I don’t think we’re going to let him get away with it, do you?”
— President Biden at a campaign stop in Tampa, reported by Tampa Bay Times.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America’s Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it,” CNN reports. “In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden.”
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”