September 12, 2019

Budget Deficit Tops $1 Trillion for First Time in Seven Years

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

$1 trillion

“The U.S. budget gap widened to more than $1 trillion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the Treasury Department said Thursday, the first time deficits have topped that amount in seven years,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Voter Enthusiasm Highest Ever

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

70%

Washington Post: “If we combine the two most enthusiastic categories in CNN’s polling (those who say they’re extremely enthusiastic and those who identify as very enthusiastic), we see that combined enthusiasm has been at or above 70 percent in every poll CNN has conducted this cycle. … Only once before has that measure of enthusiasm been at 70 percent: Two weeks before the 2004 election, 70 percent of voters were at least very enthusiastic about voting in it. … And that’s the low so far this year.”

House Judiciary Committee Adopts Rules for Impeachment

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

“The Judiciary Committee vote Thursday allows the committee counsel to question witnesses in public hearings and makes several other changes to panel rules. The procedural tools are similar to those used in the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton.”

— Washington Post

Ginsberg: Changing the Electoral College ‘Theoretical’

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

“It’s largely a dream because our Constitution is … hard to amend. I know that from experience.”

— Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, calling proposed changes to the U.S. Constitution — such as changing the Electoral College system — “more theoretical than real,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.

Bolton’s Loss Doesn’t Matter in the ‘Age of Trump’

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

“The spectacle of the Trump Presidency often overwhelms our ability to process the stakes of any individual episode. But the firing of John Bolton was not just another Washington farce in what the President himself has now started calling, as he did the other day, on Twitter, ‘the Age of Trump.’ Bolton’s exit serves as a reminder that the intensive national-security decision-making process of previous Presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, has been abandoned by Trump, subverted to the Presidential ego, and will not return for the duration of his tenure.”

— Susan Glasser

Dems Have Double-Digit Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

49% to 38%

A new Economist/YouGov poll finds Democrats with a double-digit lead in the generic congressional ballot, 49% to 38%.

National Political Environment Is Trending Blue

September 12, 2019 Buck Banks

5.5%

The Daily Kos Special Elections Tracker shows that Democrats are outperforming Hillary Clinton’s margins by an average of 5.5% across 39 federal and state legislative special elections since November 2018. This is roughly the same as the 6.5% spread shown in the generic congressional ballot averages.

Day: September 12, 2019

Budget Deficit Tops $1 Trillion for First Time in Seven Years

$1 trillion

“The U.S. budget gap widened to more than $1 trillion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the Treasury Department said Thursday, the first time deficits have topped that amount in seven years,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Voter Enthusiasm Highest Ever

70%

House Judiciary Committee Adopts Rules for Impeachment

“The Judiciary Committee vote Thursday allows the committee counsel to question witnesses in public hearings and makes several other changes to panel rules. The procedural tools are similar to those used in the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton.”

— Washington Post

Ginsberg: Changing the Electoral College ‘Theoretical’

“It’s largely a dream because our Constitution is … hard to amend. I know that from experience.”

— Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, calling proposed changes to the U.S. Constitution — such as changing the Electoral College system — “more theoretical than real,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.

Bolton’s Loss Doesn’t Matter in the ‘Age of Trump’

— Susan Glasser

Dems Have Double-Digit Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot

49% to 38%

A new Economist/YouGov poll finds Democrats with a double-digit lead in the generic congressional ballot, 49% to 38%.

National Political Environment Is Trending Blue

5.5%

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

— Rick Wilson

— Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the “resign or be fired” ultimatum from the GOP’s Freedom Caucus just 174 days into his tenure as sp[eaker, reported by Punchbowl News.

“Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back. His head droops for a third time, he shakes his shoulders. Eyes closed still. His head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open.”

— Law360 reports from the second day of Donald Trump’s “hush money” criminal trial.

— Jonathan Last

“He’s f**king crazy! The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out!”

— New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), quoted by the Associated Press two years ago. Sununu is now backing Trump for president.

Numerati

$71.1 million to $45.2 million

56% to 37%

270,000

50 of 96

New York Times: “Of the 96 possible jurors brought into the room, more than 50 raised their hands to say they couldn’t be fair. They were immediately excused.”

20%