"Warren and Sanders could be targets of moderates instead of each other in debate" by Liz Goodwin Globe Staff, July 29, 2019
Oh, that explains Sunday's Globe.
DETROIT — For the first time since the Democratic presidential campaign began, the race’s two leading liberal candidates — Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — will appear on the same debate stage here Tuesday night, but despite signs of tension between the campaigns in recent months, the debate is unlikely to feature a clash between the two for the mantle of the left. Instead, the self-proclaimed longtime friends may be too busy warding off attacks from five more moderate candidates they’ll also be sharing the stage with — all of whom are desperate for a breakout moment.
Those candidates, including Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, and Montana Governor Steve Bullock, could try to push out of the lower tiers of the large pack by launching themselves at Warren, or — more likely — Sanders.
They are going to attack and devour the liberal old lion, 'eh?
Their goal is to avoid being cut from September’s debate because of low support in the polls or donations. With little to lose, those candidates could attack the two New Englanders for pushing liberal proposals that, they argue, could hurt the party’s chances in 2020.
“This debate is really important to all the candidates who are at risk of not being back on the debate stage and facing a sort of debate death sentence,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who managed Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. “That’s why I think it’s going to be a much more aggressive debate than the first one.”
Instead of trying to subtly grab the title of most progressive candidate, Warren and Sanders may find themselves defending each other from criticism of their support for a Medicare for All health insurance plan, cancellation of student debt, and imposing higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for new programs.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which backs Warren, said he expects “a tag team act” against the moderates. “It’s mutually reinforcing for Sanders and Warren to make the case for bold progressive transformational policy — it makes them each look better,” Green said.
This shared goal may be enough to overcome signs of tensions between the Sanders and Warren campaigns that have recently surfaced. Unnamed Sanders advisers questioned Warren’s electability and past claims to Native American heritage in news reports. Sanders himself suggested in a tweet last month that he — not Warren — is the “real threat to the billionaire class.”
Related: "The only top-tier presidential candidate who seems eager to talk about foreign policy is also the only one with a consistent view: Bernie Sanders. He steadfastly opposes American military intervention and regime-change projects, and promises to end our foreign wars. Agree with him or not, it’s clear that Sanders has reflected seriously on global questions and has developed a consistent view of what American foreign policy should be."
That's why the nomination must go to anybody but him, and why I support him. I'm at the point where we need to fight fire with fire, and the way to fight the Lobby is with one of their own, one of the good ones who basically disowns the zaniness of Zionism and is more of a kibbutzer.
Sanders quickly appeared on CNN to clarify that he was not targeting Warren, but he has reason to be wary of her. Sanders has seen his standing in early-state polls fall as Warren’s creeps up and even surpasses him in some surveys, and the two share similar messages, sometimes even appearing to race each other to release their latest policy proposals, as Warren did with a plan to cancel student debt two months before Sanders unveiled his, but Sanders’ allies point out he does not appear to be personally behind the anonymous sniping from his campaign directed toward Warren, whom he considers a friend.
Jim Zogby, a board member of the Sanders-allied group Our Revolution, said he doesn’t expect the Vermont senator will go into the debate looking to target any of Warren’s weak spots. “They’re friends and he’s displayed no animus whatsoever and I don’t expect to see any on stage,” Zogby said.
Asked recently by reporters in Iowa what people should expect from him and Warren sharing a stage, Sanders responded, “Intelligence.”
Still, the two liberals have plenty of weak spots to press on each other, which could happen if the debate’s moderators ask pointedly about their differences. Warren could argue that she is a better standard-bearer for the party, since she is a Democrat while Sanders is an independent who identifies as a democratic socialist, and Sanders could make the case that he has been fighting for progressive values longer than Warren has, but the Democratic race appears to be overdue for a moderate rebellion, not lefty infighting.
Aside from former vice president Joe Biden, who is a front-runner in polls and will appear in Wednesday’s debate, more moderate candidates have largely failed to gain traction in surveys and media attention.
Sanders, the field’s oldest candidate at 77, could also face a generational challenge, as Pete Buttigieg — the race’s youngest candidate, at 37 — will be standing right next to him.
Oh, the AGEISM of the Globe!
If Sanders ends up as the debate’s lightning rod, the result may be a relatively quiet night for Warren, who has maintained her position in second or third in the polls since rising in the spring on the strength of a steady stream of progressive policy proposals.
Bernie can come roaring out of there saying they were picking on an old man, but seriously, I think he knows the knives are out like four years ago. He does deserve credit for being the only one who put his neck out against the Clinton machine.
“I don’t think the burden is on Elizabeth Warren here; I think she can keep her head down and get through it,” said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic political consultant in New York. “Since her launch, she very much has been the tortoise: slow and steady wins the race. She doesn’t have to have a breakout moment.”
There is definitely something to that, especially when you are campaigning directly to voters and accumulating delegates. The flip side is amount of donors, not donations, for each donation represents a vote.
Such a moment for Warren is far more likely when she eventually shares a stage with Biden, who has maintained his commanding lead over the field despite a shaky performance in Miami. Warren has already highlighted her differences in opinion with the former vice president on bankruptcy, while Sanders has poked at Biden’s fund-raisers targeting the wealthy and his more incremental policy approach.
“Everyone wants a piece of Biden,” said Brian Fallon, a former top Hillary Clinton aide and the founder of the liberal advocacy group Demand Justice.....
Ugh, the ghost behind it all still.
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I flip below the fold to find:
"Where are they? It’s high summer in N.H., but the candidates are elsewhere" by James Pindell Globe Staff, July 29, 2019
Instead of campaigning intensely in the early voting states — shaking hands on Hampton Beach or eating pork on a stick at the Iowa State Fair — most Democrats running for president are much more focused on meeting the Democratic National Committee’s rules for making the cut for the third national televised debate.
You better have a good short game if you are on the lower-tier bubble.
To make the September debate stage in Houston, candidates must have at least 130,000 unique donors to their campaigns and receive at least 2 percent in four polls that the DNC deems credible.
So far, just eight have said they will qualify: former vice president Joe Biden; Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Senator Kamala Harris of California; former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; and New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
It's called winnowing the field.
Everyone else must find a way to meet the two qualifications by the Aug. 28 deadline. For some candidates, that means flying to Los Angeles and New York to get on as many television programs and podcasts as they can. For others, it means spending their remaining money on social media campaigns aimed at improving name recognition and getting new donors, and so far they are not coming.
So what is the carbon footprint going to be for those candidates?
There are currently 25 candidates running for president. During the 26-day period that began last week, only two candidates had or were scheduled to have events in the state. Warren showed up Saturday for a pair of events, and on Aug. 1, author Marianne Williamson will spend a single day in the state.
“The formula for how to run for president has changed specifically because of the debate qualification hurdles,” said Democratic strategist Colin Strother. “It gives the front-runners an even greater advantage as they will be able to really zone in and protect their market share while the folks at the bottom are just trying to get noticed.”
In New Hampshire, without candidates visiting the state for weeks or months, campaign staff are forced to get creative to engage voters who expect attention every four years.
Booker’s campaign is inviting supporters and activists to movie nights to watch “Street Fight,” a documentary about Booker’s first campaign for mayor of Newark. They are also inviting supporters to “gardening mornings” with staff.
O’Rourke’s staff and volunteers hosted a cleanup at Wallis Sands State Beach in Rye last Sunday. Senator Amy Klobuchar called into three rural radio stations in the state while she was in Washington, D.C.
The Sanders campaign held volunteer workshops around the state, and Buttigieg’s campaign is handing out invites to bowling and poetry nights. (A hiking trip in the North Country is also in the works.)
“This is a campaign built around joy and community and fun,” said Buttigieg’s New Hampshire director, Michael Ceraso.
Even events devised to lure presidential candidates to New Hampshire aren’t necessarily working this season. The Hollis Democrats — among the most active party committees in the state — recently attempted to hold a presidential candidate night at a historic barn, but no candidate showed.
On Thursday night, roughly 60 people showed up for the Somersworth Democrats’ BBQ, but only two presidential campaigns were willing to pay the $250 fee for a staffer to speak for five minutes: Yang and former housing secretary Julian Castro.
Castro had his moment.
One Democrat who is far from qualifying for the September debate is Representative Seth Moulton, of Salem. His staff says he plans to spend “significant” time in New Hampshire in August.
“Other campaigns are making strategic decisions solely based on getting on a debate stage, while we are strategically focused on winning over primary voters,” said Moulton’s campaign spokesman, Matt Corridoni.
Globe is obsessed with him.
Campaign staffs and strategists argue the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary will still play a huge role in selecting the nominee. The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 3, and the New Hampshire primary is expected to be held eight days later, but until then, the DNC debate rules have prompted a shift in campaign strategy for nearly every candidate in the field.
I agree. The field reduces significantly after that because campaigns are expensive and if it is a losing effort, you cut your losses.
“I have always said the threat to the New Hampshire primary isn’t some state that wants to jump ahead, but when the candidates stop showing up,” said pollster Andy Smith, who also teaches a presidential primary class at the University of New Hampshire. “And in this pivotal period, they aren’t showing up for very logical reasons because of the DNC rules. This is concerning to see for people who value the New Hampshire primary, but they will be back soon.”
Oh, okay, but they are not planning to release another poll before the deadline and “without a poll to help them make the debate, there really is no reason to go to New Hampshire.”
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Related:
The high cost of housing emerges as a presidential campaign issue
Warren calls for US trade overhaul as she pitches populism in the Midwest
Based on what the Globe editorialized yesterday, they may not agree:
"Democrats should set aside political qualms, approve new NAFTA deal
For years, the Democratic Party complained about NAFTA, the free trade deal between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and called for changes to make it more friendly to American workers.
Well, now they have the opportunity, but it’s come courtesy of such an unexpected source — a Republican president, Donald Trump — that many elected Democrats suddenly seem to have second thoughts, and the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has yet to schedule a vote on an updated free trade deal.
If Democrats thwart the revised deal, they’ll not only hurt the American economy. They’ll also hurt Mexico — even as many Democrats correctly point out that helping Latin America prosper is the best way to reduce the flow of immigrants and refugees that Trump capitalizes on to stoke fear.
The new trade pact was finalized and signed last year by the three countries. Officially called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the deal modernized key aspects of NAFTA. It includes stricter and enforceable labor and environmental standards, and some changes for automakers, such as requiring that a higher percentage of an automobile be made in North America to qualify for tariff relief. The agreement also upgrades intellectual property protections and adds a new chapter on the digital economy. It also includes a 16-year sunset clause and will be subject to a review every six years.
Democrats don’t like every part of the agreement, but it’s politics that seems to be the biggest stumbling block. With the 2020 election looming, Democrats are wary of giving President Trump a policy win.
The longer they wait, the harder it will get. The intensifying politics of the 2020 presidential election will inevitably influence the deal’s fate, and not in a good way, but the politics cuts both ways: If the deal goes down, the millions of Americans who benefit from free trade with Canada and Mexico could well blame Democrats.
The Democrats’ concerns about the revised deal have to do with drug pricing, environmental protection, and the new labor provisions and their enforcement. Those provisions are aimed primarily at Mexico. To comply, Mexico passed major labor reforms a few months ago, such as giving workers the right to representation by independent unions and establishing better mechanisms to enforce basic labor and health standards in workplaces. But House Democrats — and US labor unions — are still skeptical about how those new laws south of the border will work out. They’re demanding stricter rules on enforcement, but judged against the status quo, the deal is an improvement, and Mexico is already making good on its end. “Mexico made a commitment, and we followed through with it,” said Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in late April after Mexican lawmakers passed the labor reforms. “Now it’s up to members of Congress in the US to finish it.”
The economic impact of scuttling the free trade zone would be severe, since the three economies are deeply intertwined, with supply chains that meander across the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders.
“NAFTA and the new USMCA agreement are really about shared production even more than they are about trade,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., and an expert on US-Mexico relations. “There is no US auto industry, there is only a North American auto industry. These are production processes in which American workers are making goods together with American and Canadian workers.”
Trade with Canada and Mexico supports more than 12 million American jobs, according to 2017 data from Business Roundtable. That includes more than 600,000 jobs in the six New England states, with half of those in Massachusetts alone (302,500, to be exact). Moreover, a report from the US International Trade Commission on the new deal showed that it will have a positive impact on the US economy and employment.
If the revised deal isn’t passed soon, then the issue will become fuel in the fire of next year’s presidential election. If House Democrats care about American workers and companies and the health of our Latin American neighbors as much as they say they do, they should approve the deal.....
"After inflammatory attack, Trump accuses Democrats of playing ‘the Race Card’" by Peter Baker New York Times, July 28, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump denied Sunday that his attacks on an African-American congressman and his “disgusting, rat and rodent infested” district were racist even as he fired back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi by targeting her district as well.
As he has done repeatedly when challenged for inflaming racial tensions, Trump sought to turn the accusation around by alleging that Democrats were playing “the Race Card.”
He's angry because Cummings has been authorized to subpoena work-related e-mails and text messages on personal devices from Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and other White House officials, and because he questioned administration policy at a recent hearing about conditions for detained migrants. It also shows that Trump has been spending way too much time in the presence of supremacist Zionists. Tapper just did it to Tlaib.
The African-American congressman, Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, Pelosi, and other Democrats fired back, as did The Baltimore Sun, which published a blistering editorial defending its hometown.
“We would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are ‘good people’ among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post,” the editorial said. “Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.”
Democrats appearing on the Sunday talk shows came to Cummings’s defense and assailed Trump for playing racial games. Appearing on “This Week” on ABC, Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said the president was “disgusting and racist,” while Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, noted that Trump does not attack impoverished rural white districts.
“Our job is to bring people together to improve life for all people,” Sanders, who himself lamented conditions in West Baltimore in 2015 as resembling “a Third World country,” said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “Not to have a racist president who attacks people because they are African-American. That is a disgrace. And that’s why we’re going to defeat this president.”
So the pre$$ implication there is that Bernie is also racist?
On “Fox News Sunday,” White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney said Trump made a fair point about the state of affairs in Cummings’s district. “It has absolutely zero to do with race,” he said, adding: “Have you seen some of the pictures on the Internet? Just this morning from the conditions in Baltimore, Maryland. Have you seen them?”
Isn't he just acting chief of staff?
During his campaign and at points during his presidency, Trump has insisted that “we’re fixing the inner cities,” but made no effort in his weekend tweets to explain what if anything he is doing to fix Baltimore. Instead, he went after Pelosi, herself a native of Baltimore and the daughter and brother of former mayors who chastised him for his original tweets, saying that her San Francisco district was “not even recognizable lately.”
“Someone please explain to Nancy Pelosi, who was recently called racist by those in her own party, that there is nothing wrong with bringing out the very obvious fact that Congressman Elijah Cummings has done a very poor job for his district,” the president wrote.....
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"Trump lashes out at Sharpton, saying he ‘hates whites’" by Peter Baker New York Times, July 29, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump, after a weekend spent assailing a leading African-American congressman from Baltimore, widened his war on critics of color Monday morning as he denounced the Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime civil rights leader and MSNBC host.
“I’ve never heard him say anything racial,” Sharpton recently told The New York Times of his time with Trump in New York, but he noted that Trump did not surround himself with people of color in his business before becoming president. “I’ve never seen a black exec in Trump Organization,” Sharpton said. “I’ve never seen a black on his C-suite.”
I suppose he has a point there.
Sharpton has his own complicated history when it comes to race. He was an outspoken activist through a string of racially charged episodes in New York in the 1980s and 1990s, and was regarded in that era alternately as a champion of social justice or a self-promoting provocateur. He drew broad criticism as one of the most vocal supporters of Tawana Brawley, an African American teenager whose claims of abuse and rape by a gang of white men in 1987 were eventually exposed as a hoax.
Sharpton has reinvented himself over the years as a more measured and more mainstream national voice on civil rights and social justice, and he ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004. His National Action Network has become a force on the political left, and even Trump twice attended its conventions — indeed, he cut the ribbon at the 2002 gathering.
He's also an informant for the FBI, which is about where he lost me.
It means he is all part of the show, folks, and benefiting from the wrestling match.
Sharpton on Monday posted a picture of himself with Trump. “Trump at NAN Convention 2006 telling James Brown and Jesse Jackson why he respects my work. Different tune now.”
The flare-up with Sharpton came after Trump assailed Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the Democrat who represents much of Maryland’s largest city, over the weekend. In a phone interview with MSNBC after Trump’s initial attack on him Monday morning, Sharpton attributed it to the reelection politics of 2020.....
Oh, it's all politics, I see.
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Related:
"Academics, lawmakers, dignitaries, and President Trump will gather in Virginia this week for events celebrating the beginnings of American democracy four centuries ago. Tuesday marks the 400th anniversary of the first meeting of the House of Burgesses — the first representative legislative assembly in the Western Hemisphere — at Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America. The first meeting of the House of Burgesses, which took place at a church in Jamestown, laid the foundation for representative government in what would become the United States. Tuesday’s events are just one part of a yearlong commemoration called American Evolution meant to honor key milestones in the state’s Colonial history, including the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans’ arrival in English North America....."
Look at that whitewash of the past (all those guys were slaveholders) as Cummings and Trump go at it, and I've seen this movie before. It's the same script as August two years ago, when the pre$$ and country was embroiled in Charlottesville and race.
"Virginia’s black state lawmakers announced Monday they will boycott an event this week commemorating the beginnings of American democracy because President Trump is scheduled to attend. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus said its members would not attend a ceremony in Jamestown on Tuesday marking the 400th anniversary of the first representative assembly in the Western Hemisphere. ‘‘The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the president, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric,’’ the caucus said in a statement. Caucus members said they will also boycott other parts of a weeklong series of events and have instead planned alternative commemorations Tuesday in Richmond. Trump, who event organizers say will give remarks Tuesday, is among the state and national leaders and dignitaries scheduled to attend the Jamestown ceremony......"
How odd that they are boycotting an event that they would never have been allowed into except as a slave.
I just can't imagine where all that racism is coming from, can you?
"A former top Trump administration appointee at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ‘‘may have abused his authority’’ and ‘‘misused his position for private gain’’ in an attempt to diffuse an article from The Washington Post about online posts in which he questioned whether the N-word was racist, according to an inspector general’s report. Before the article was published, Eric Blankenstein, a policy director at the CFPB responsible for enforcing the country’s fair lending laws, asked a subordinate to write a statement in support of him that also ‘‘created the appearance of a violation’’ of ethics rules, according to the report, which was obtained by The Post through the offices of Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sherrod Brown of Iowa. The subordinate, Patrice Finklin, told investigators she didn’t feel she had a choice and was given little time to write the statement in which she described Blankenstein as ‘‘collegial, thoughtful and meticulous.’’
Looks like they discovered a mole, and it could be four more years of an authentically racist Trump.
Soon it will be a crime to give an illegal water.
Also see:
"US Senator Rick Scott said Sunday that he was never told by Homeland Security officials in 2016 when he was Florida’s governor that Russian hackers had gained access to voter databases in two Florida counties ahead of the presidential election. Scott said on NBC’s ‘‘Meet the Press’’ that he was never contacted by the Department of Homeland Security in 2016 about the infiltration. The Republican said he learned about most of the details this year. Current Governor Ron DeSantis said in May that the hackers didn’t manipulate any data and the election results weren’t compromised. DeSantis and other officials briefed on the matter wouldn’t say which counties. Scott made his comments when asked about a Senate report released last week that said all states were targeted to varying degrees by Russian hackers. Scott said he hasn’t yet read the report, though he was briefed on it. Last August, then-Democratic US Senator Bill Nelson, who Scott was running against, said that Russians had penetrated the systems of certain Florida counties and had ‘‘free rein to move about’’ before last year’s midterm election. Scott, who defeated Nelson in the November election, criticized Nelson’s allegations, saying they were sensational. The Senate report outlined efforts by Russian hackers to get into systems in Illinois and around two dozen unnamed states. It detailed attempts in Illinois and a state only referred to as ‘‘State 2’’ but widely believed to be Florida, according to newsreports."
Why didn't the Obama administration say a word, huh?
Because that would have exposed the infiltration and spying on an opposing party's presidential campaign, and besides, Hillary was going to win anyway?
"As Donald Trump was preparing to deliver an address on energy policy in May 2016, Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman, had a question about the speech’s contents for Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a top campaign fund-raiser and close friend of Trump. “Are you running this by our friends?” Manafort asked in a previously undisclosed e-mail to Barrack, whose real estate and investment firm does extensive business in the Middle East. Barrack was, in fact, coordinating the language in a draft of the speech with Persian Gulf contacts including Rashid al-Malik, an Emirati businessman who is close to the rulers of the United Arab Emirates. The exchanges about Trump’s energy speech are among a series of interactions that have come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors looking at foreign influence over his campaign, his transition, and the early stages of his administration, according to documents and interviews with people familiar with the case. Investigators have looked in particular at whether Barrack or others violated the law requiring people who try to influence US policy or opinion at the direction of foreign governments or entities to disclose their activities to the Justice Department, people familiar with the case said. The inquiry had proceeded far enough last month that Barrack, who played an influential role in the campaign and acts as an outside adviser to the White House, was interviewed, at his request, by prosecutors in the public integrity unit of the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn. Barrack’s spokesman, Owen Blicksilver, said that in expectation of this article, Barrack’s lawyer had again contacted the prosecutors’ office and “confirmed they have no further questions for Mr. Barrack.” Barrack has not been accused of wrongdoing, and his aides said he never worked on behalf of foreign states or entities. Asked about the status of the inquiry, a representative for the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment."
Yeah, try to get your mind around that one if you can.
"The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday that he believes President Trump ‘‘richly deserves impeachment,’’ an explosive statement from the lawmaker whose committee has the power to launch proceedings to remove the president from office. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, appearing on CNN’s ‘‘State of the Union,’’ said Trump ‘‘has done many impeachable offenses, he’s violated the law six ways from Sunday.’’ ‘‘But that’s not the question,’’ Nadler continued. ‘‘The question is, can we develop enough evidence to put before the American people?’’ The distinction illustrates a growing tension within the Democratic Party: Many members are convinced Trump ought to be impeached, but the consensus among party leaders is that they should try to secure more records and witness interviews through the courts before embarking on such a politically incendiary move, especially as the GOP-controlled Senate is likely to defeat such an effort.
That's where the print was cut off, but the web Globe kept flirting with the idea:
Nadler’s comments come on the heels of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Nadler called the testimony ‘‘an inflection point, in that it broke the administration’s lie, the attorney general’s lie, that the president was fully exonerated by the Mueller report.’’ As the leader of the committee that would launch the impeachment hearings, Nadler is the most important Democrat yet to publicly state his personal support for the cause in no uncertain terms, but he has been loath to cross House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California in his official moves — and gave no sign Sunday that he intended to break with that pattern. ‘‘We’re investigating the corruption of the administration, the abuses of power . . . all the things that might cause us to recommend articles of impeachment,’’ Nadler said. ‘‘We now have to get further evidence and put it before the American people as we consider articles of impeachment.’’ Pelosi has regularly resisted the calls from her caucus for impeachment proceedings, but last week, she signed off on the House Judiciary Committee’s appeal to a federal judge to enforce its subpoenas seeking the redacted grand jury information contained in the Mueller report. Nadler also told reporters that the panel would go to court next week to enforce its subpoenas against former White House counsel Donald McGahn, whose testimony was key to the report."
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
NYC police seek 2 shooters in playground shooting
That has already been overshadowed by shooting in California (the photos have not convinced me), and thoughts and prayers’ aren’t enough anymore.
Family identifies victim of Dorchester shooting
At least Big Papi will be back soon!
"Woman set to replace Puerto Rico’s governor doesn’t want job" by Dánica Coto Associated Press, July 28, 2019
SAN JUAN — The woman who is supposed to replace Puerto Rico’s embattled governor announced Sunday that she doesn’t want the job as the US territory reels from political crisis.
She must be out of her mind!
Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez said in a Twitter post that she hopes Governor Ricardo Rosselló will appoint a secretary of state before resigning Aug. 2 as planned.
Former secretary of state Luis Rivera Marín would have been next in line as governor, according to the US territory’s constitution, but he is one of more than a dozen officials who have resigned in recent weeks since someone leaked an obscenity-laced chat in which Rosselló and close advisers insulted people including women and victims of Hurricane Maria.
Rosselló on Wednesday announced that he would step down following nearly two weeks of massive protests amid anger over the chat, corruption charges against several former government officials, and a 13-year recession. In the chat, the 40-year-old Democrat and son of a governor called a female politician a ‘‘whore,’’ referred to another as a ‘‘daughter of a bitch,’’ and made fun of an obese man with whom he posed in a photo.
Rosselló became the first governor to resign in the modern history of Puerto Rico, a US territory of 3.2 million American citizens. He is more than halfway through his four-year term. Marín’s resignation had left Vázquez as next in line to be governor, but she said she has already told Rosselló about her wishes not to get the job, creating a chaotic scenario about who will be Puerto Rico’s next leader.
If Rosselló’s choice for a secretary of state is not approved by the island’s House and Senate, Puerto Rico’s law dictates the treasury secretary would be next in line if the justice secretary doesn’t become governor, but current Treasury Secretary Francisco Parés is too young at 31 years old. The constitution dictates the person would have to be at least 35, so that would leave interim Education Secretary Eligio Hernández next in line. He replaced former education secretary Julia Keleher, who resigned in April and was arrested July 10 on federal corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty.
‘‘This is crazy,’’ political expert Mario Negrón Portillo said in a phone interview on Sunday. ‘‘We have no idea what’s even going to happen tomorrow. Societies cannot live with this type of uncertainty.’’
Time to leave.
Vázquez’s comments came less than an hour after Public Affairs Secretary Anthony Maceira resigned. The announcement comes a day before Puerto Ricans planned another march, this time against Vázquez, who is accused of not ordering an investigation into the alleged mismanagement of supplies for hurricane victims, among other things.
Vázquez said on Friday that there is a lot of misinformation but that she cannot speak publicly about certain cases.
‘‘The vicious attacks on my personal and professional integrity continue,’’ she said. ‘‘The desire and agenda of some to try to undermine my credibility at this moment of transcendental importance to Puerto Rico and to destabilize the governmental order is evident.’’
She sounds like a conspiracy theorist!
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Related: Shades of resistance, unity at Puerto Rican parade
She may be staying after all.
