⛳ Personal thread: I’m back at work after taking leave to help my mom. Apologies if I didn’t respond to you earlier. Please do reach out now!
I’m also going to TMI here. I hope it can be helpful to someone out there...
Doug Jones taking off gloves: Just finished speech saying he uses guns for hunting “not prancing around on stage,” said Moore has “never, ever served our state with honor,” and that “men who hurt little girls should go to jail and not the United States Senate.”
I’m no psychology professor but it does seem weird to me that someone could have a selective fear of flying.
Can’t do it to testify but for vacation, well it’s not a problem at all.
Biden adviser
@SymoneDSanders
on DNC call: "With all due respect Mr. Vice President, that violence is happening right now in Donald Trump’s America. This is happening on your watch... You own this.”
Has anyone in the “it’s a fabricated smear by Dems/the media” camp attempted to explain why Neil Gorsuch didn’t get hit by an allegation? Was George Soros just, like, on vacation that month?
Inbox: Reps. Ro Khanna and Rep. Tim Ryan have a new bill to respond to the coronavirus that would give $1,000 and $6,000 to every American who earned less than $65,000 last year, via an emergency EITC. "More than three-quarters of American workers would qualify."
NEW: Larry Elder's campaign is promoting a website that claims the recall is over, Newsom won, and they found voter fraud through a statistical analysis of the results.
The only problem: The election hasn't happened yet...
Democrats have *flipped* 7 state legislative chambers and 333 seats, adding 6 more trifectas (gov+both chambers), per DLCC.
Few ever pay attention to these races, but they’re important for redistributing and waves can be leveraged for major gains.
Pete Buttigieg 11:41 am: "You will not see me exchanging love letters with on WH letterhead with a brutal dictator."
Donald Trump 12:46 pm: "I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un."
Iowa county Democratic party chairman to me on the future of the caucuses:
"There were 49 other states saying why does Iowa get to do this?... And now we just poured a gallon on kerosene on what was a shouldering ember.”
Project Veritas is offering a $25K reward for tips related to election fraud...which strikes me as something you do if you don't already have a ton of evidence of voter on hand.
Wow: The Bernie Sanders campaign becomes the first presidential campaign in history to unionize, per campaign.
That's a pretty big challenge to all the other campaigns.
One potential loser tonight is campaigns. Like, in general.
Joe Biden had ONE field office in Virginia. Was outspent 7-to-1 by Sanders and almost 100-to-1 by Bloomberg in all super Tuesday States. Had barely campaigned in any states. And yet...
The most stunning thing about this John Roberts statement is that he gave it to the AP, not during public remarks or in a law journal or any of the myriad ways he could have softened its edges. He wanted it out there and now, through the front door.
Bernie Sanders, asked by
@SRuhle
on MSNBC about Trump saying he'll skip the debate. "That was 12 seconds ago right? He may have changed his mind since then."
You don’t have to have quote tweet dunk on every Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet. She wants you to do that. It’s the quickest way for her to become the next Michele Bachmann.
NEWS: Bernie Sanders declares a “very strong victory” in Iowa at an NH press conference.
Says when 6,000 more people turn out for you than any other candidate, “we here in Northern England” call that a win. Says SDEs have “greatly diminished importance, and they should.”
Elizabeth Warren opens her CNN town hall by saying she brought something with her -- a contract she wrote up that she says would release former Bloomberg employees from NDAs.
"I used to teach contract law... All he has to do is sign it. I’ll text it."
This took about 20 seconds. And kudos to whomever had the idea to include the $0.00 price instead of just not displaying it at all. Makes it feel like you're getting a deal.
The good news: The threat at the Capitol looks may be a false alarm.
The bad news: A reminder that people are living in tents under highway overpasses just a few blocks from the Capitol of the most powerful nation on the planet.
All of this homeless person’s belongings just went up in flames under the 695 bridge near H and 2nd SE. Extremely unfortunate...
@WTOPtraffic
@nbcwashington
Joe Biden's electoral performance in the NH presidential primary:
- 1988: Withdrew from race before NH
- 2008: Withdrew from race before NH
- 2020: 5th place
- 2024: Won as a write-in
If I told you Matt Gaetz bought a yacht in questionable deal that went bad and then prematurely renamed it "Thirsty" you'd say, "come on, that's a little too on the nose." Well...
Holy moly, a Sinclair-owned TV station in Charleston, SC used a mug shot instead of a photo of Jaime Harrison during a segment discussing his Senate campaign against Lindsey Graham.
Statement from
@GrahamBlog
: “Supporting the impeachment of President Trump under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the President is calling for calm.”
The site asks Elder supporters to sign a petition demanding a special session of CA legislature to investigate "the twisted results of this 2021 Recall Election."
Again, the election has hasn't happened yet.
Biden was just interrupted by a rabbi during a fundraiser in Minneapolis: "Mr. President, If you care about Jewish people, as a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire."
Jewish Voters for Peace, which organized it, identified her as Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg
Video via them ->
UPDATE FROM PALM BEACH: Nothing.
We’re now 18 hrs from a deadline they’re supposedly rushing to meet and there are *zero* machines running, *zero* employees visible working on the floor, and no new info in hours.
I just asked supervisor for update, she waved hand, walked away.
Elizabeth Warren on a call with her staff today: "We have been willing to fight, and, when necessary, we left plenty of blood and teeth on the floor. And I can think of one billionaire who has been denied the chance to buy this election."
As much fun as it may be to dunk on Iowa, remember the real victims are the campaign staff and volunteers who just poured months of blood, sweat, and tears into something they believed in, only to have it go fakakta for no fault of their own. Another victory for cynicism.
Cory Booker's failure to launch while less likely ppl did (Yang) remains one of thornier Qs of this cycle...
My main theory is he's an earnest dude in a cynical time and people just didn't buy that his schtick was for real (even though all the evidence I've seen suggests it is).
We’ve lost one candidate per day for the past three days. My model projects that if this trend continues, we’ll be entitley out of candidates by Saturday.
Republicans who have criticized Trump's false claims of victory and/or said count every vote:
- Mitch McConnell
- Marco Rubio
- Rob Portman
- Mike Lee
- Gov.-elect of Utah
- Chris Christie
- Rick Santorum
- AZ Gov. Ducey
- Mike Huckabee
- John Bolton
Bernie Sanders: "Authoritarianism has taken root in our country. I, and my family, and many of yours, know the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy, decency, and humanity."
The Ted Cruz thing falls in the ideal quadrant of the Scandal Matrix, where the stakes are relatively low and the specifics are more farcical than sickening (aka the Louise Linton Zone) so people feel free to dunk with glee.
Meg Whitman: "I'm a longtime Republican and a longtime CEO. And let me tell you, Donald Trump has no clue how to run a business, let alone an economy."
Some new-person personal news: I'm signing off for a while to enjoy the arrival of our daughter, Phoebe, born Monday, May the 4th be With Her.
Everyone doing well, though
@lucia_graves
knows she'll now finally have to get into Star Wars.
See ya later 👋
"Statistical analyses used to detect fraud in elections held in 3rd-world nations...detected fraud in California resulting in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as governor."
Again, the election hasn't happened yet....
Reminder that Julian Assange (who was in a position to know) and others have spent the past 2 years trying to pin the DNC hack on Seth Rich, a slain DNC junior staffer who cannot defend himself.
It's official. Here are the 10 candidates who made next week's MSNBC debate, per the DNC:
Joe Biden
Cory Booker
Pete Buttigieg
Tulsi Gabbard
Kamala Harris
Amy Klobuchar
Bernie Sanders
Tom Steyer
Elizabeth Warren
Andrew Yang
Notably not on the list: Julián Castro
Pete Buttigieg plays Internet Risk on his iPhone when he's trying to "power down" before bed, he told us on the bus last night.
Q: So there are people out there playing Risk against a pres candidate?
A: Yeah
Q: What's your username?
A: I'm totally not telling you that.
Here's why the FL recount takes so long
Broward alone has 714k ballots, consisting of 3.5 million pages.
Right now, all they're doing is sorting the 1st page, which has all 7 races being recounting, from the rest.
That sorting alone will take 30-35 hours. Then they count.
New hires for Bernie Sanders' comms shop: The Intercept's Briahna Joy Gray joins as national press secretary, David Sirota comes on board as senior comms adviser and speechwriter.
So Abby Johnson is still tweeting in defense of her head-of-household voting position. Like, right now. Minutes before her speech to the RNC. Last one was 2 mins ago.
Status report on our nation's critical infrastructure:
- Dams - Broken
- Floodgates - Opened
- Train stations - Depleted of trains, which have already left
- Horse barn - Lacking horses, which already left.
- Points of no return = Passed
- Rubicons = Crossed
Medicare for All has support among Democratic primary voters in every state where we have exit polls so far this year.
62 percent (!) in Mississippi (!)