Yes, it’s finally here and it confirms what all the other polls have been showing for the last month. Acknowledging that the NY Times Sienna poll is considered the gold standard among the cognoscenti, Dan Pfeiffer does a nice analysis of what it says about this moment in time: The Democratic coalition is heading home. As the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher wrote in his analysis of the poll: Biden had a 43-point lead with Black voters in February, now that advantage is 53 points. Among Hispanic voters, Biden trailed by six in February. He now leads by nine. The President also increased his lead with voters over the age of 65 by three points. Based on this data, we can assume that the movement is largely among older voters. These are also the voters expected to shift after an event like the State of the Union and an aggressive, well-funded television advertising campaign. Engaging older voters is simply easier in this fractured media environment. They consume more traditional news sources and still watch linear television and are therefore easier to reach with television ads.
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If Washington believed that Iran was about to start a war with Israel, would the Pentagon be bringing home its morticians?
The post U.S. Military Isn’t That Concerned About War With Iran appeared first on The Intercept.
Suppressing the vote by any means necessary Another GOP non-solution to a non-problem from frightened men who can’t govern except by making it harder for U.S. citizens to choose their leaders. TFG Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced an “election integrity” bill at their Mar-a-Lago meeting on Friday. Their bill would make voting by non-citizens illegaler than it is already. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bluff that has no chance to get past the U.S. Senate if Republicans even introduce it. Trump and Johnson got the publicity. They stoked the MAGA base’s xenophobia. They fed the voter fraud conspiracy theory. These guardians of the republic further undermined confidence in government of the people in which they themselves no longer believe. It’s a win-win-win-win. How will they make the illegal illegaler? We don’t know, not having seen the bill (if it exists). People already must swear on penalty of a fine of “not more than $10,000″ or imprisonment of “not more than five years, or both” that they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote (to be verified by boards of elections).
This is ridiculous. Even Napoleon didn’t go this far. But then, consider this by Jonathan Martin, one of the foremost purveyors of Village 2.0 conventional wisdom in which he reveals that up until now, just everybody has assumed that Trump has a lock on the White House. It has long appeared to me that the beltway press has felt that way and it’s nice to know that my perceptions weren’t wrong. But I honestly did know about the rest of this: It has been close to an open secret in the diplomatic corps that America’s allies and adversaries are anticipating a Trump restoration. Discussing who will fill his second-term Cabinet and White House isn’t just the stuff of parlor games in embassies and overseas capitals — it has taken on a what-will-we-do urgency since Trump sealed the GOP nomination last month. It is one thing for Hungarian President Viktor Orban, the contrarian and would-be authoritarian troll of the continent, to descend on Mar-a-Lago for an ersatz state visit.
Trump is under a gag order which says that he’s not allowed to publicly attack witnesses in his upcoming trial. Mark Pomerantz and Michael Cohen are both witnesses. Will anything come of it? Probably not. He seems to have achieved immunity from judge’s orders. He’s still letting fly. This article by Politico’s legal editorJames Romoser discusses just how unusual that is: A firebrand politician named Donald is about to stand trial. Just a few days before jury selection, he goes on TV to slam the charges as baseless and biased. “The FBI and the Justice Department,” he insists, have “targeted” their political opponents in a burst of partisan persecution. The rhetoric sounds familiar, but this is not a story about Donald Trump. It’s about a man named Don Hill, a former Dallas City Council member who was facing bribery charges 15 years ago. The telltale clue that this isn’t about Trump is what happened next: The judge, upset by the attempt to taint the jury pool, slapped the politician-turned-defendant with criminal contempt and ultimately sentenced him to 30 days in jail for violating a gag order.
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V.P. Kamala Harris goes on the attack “Overturning Roe was just the opening act of a larger strategy to take womens’ rights and freddoms,” Vice President Kamala Harris told supporters in Arizona on Friday. Arizona is challenging other swing states for the designation of “Ground Zero” in the 2024 presidential race. The Arizona Supreme Court’s reanimating the territory’s 1864 abortion ban this week drew Vice President Kamala Harris to the state on Friday. She brought the heat and she named names. Well, just one (CNN): Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday placed the blame squarely on Donald Trump as she went on the offensive over abortion rights in Arizona and across the country. In the wake of an Arizona Supreme Court ruling this week banning abortions in almost all cases, Harris headed to Arizona to mobilize voters who see November’s election as a referendum on women’s rights, one of the Biden campaign’s key issues in the upcoming election. The vice president has become a go-to voice for the campaign on abortion rights and quickly announced a trip to Tucson after Tuesday’s ruling.
We finally got the latest all-important NY Times poll which shows that Biden has gained 4 points in the last 6 weeks or so and is now virtually tied with Trump. This follows most of the other polling over the past few weeks showing that Biden’s numbers have moved up. The article accompanying is predictably dour, suggesting that everyone hates him anyway and that underneath it all Trump is really much more popular (which is untrue) but that’s how the NY Times polling rolls these days. The fact is that Biden is steadily turning the ship around and Democrats are coming back on board. If the race were held today it would be a a nail biter and it very likely will be the same in November because half the country is in a cult-like trance and believes that Donald Trump is either Jesus Christ or a business genius who will make them all rich and the rest of us are terrified that this fascist cult leader will edge out another win. I don’t know if there’s any way to change that.
A real man of the people If you enjoyed the 2008 financial system crash you’re going to love a second Trump term: A second Trump White House would seek to sharply reduce the power of U.S. financial regulators, according to a review of public documents and interviews with people allied with the former president. In the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Congress dramatically expanded the U.S. government’s oversight of the financial industry to prevent a repeat of the 2008 global banking meltdown. Donald Trump would likely renew his efforts to scale back those reforms, if elected, as well as pare protections for small-scale investors and borrowers, and allow companies to raise money with less scrutiny, according to the interviews and proposals from groups positioned to influence a new conservative administration. Reuters spoke with, among others, about a dozen people who have provided advice or been consulted by Trump or his allies.