“The White House is actively considering plans that could again separate parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to reverse soaring numbers of families attempting to cross illegally into the United States,” the Washington Post reports.
“One option under consideration is for the government to detain asylum-seeking families together for up to 20 days, then give parents a choice: Stay in family detention with your child for months or years as your immigration case proceeds, or allow children to be taken to a government shelter so other relatives or guardians can seek custody.”
Daily Beast: “In the middle of September, Donald Trump wanted to make something very clear to his senior staff: He didn’t feel like he was talking to enough reporters, and he needed to talk to as many as humanly possible in the coming weeks.”
“According to two knowledgeable sources, the president told some of his top lieutenants, including White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Bill Shine, that he was frustrated and believed he wasn’t getting his message out enough on mainstream channels in the weeks leading up to the critical midterm elections.”
“Trump then directed his top comms brass to make sure he would get on the phone and facetime with more journalists from various outlets (not simply Fox), to supplement his increasingly busy 2018 campaign-trail schedule. He wanted a media strategy for “flood[ing] the zone,” as one senior administration official put it, and to make himself an even grander presence on the TV shows and print publications he so addictively consumes.”
Trump's effort to rig the Census is a deepening scandal: https://t.co/hZ06a7bpe9
— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) October 12, 2018
Andrew Sullivan: “As I’ve noted before, Trump’s record as a force of destruction is profound, whether it be the sabotage of Obamacare, the devastation of democratic norms, or the rattling of NATO. But as the months tick by, there’s a decent case that Trump’s proactive accomplishments are beginning to add up as well: a huge tax cut, two Supreme Court justices, wholesale deregulation, renegotiation of NAFTA, isolation of Iran, and a broader reboot of bilateral nationalism on the world stage.”
“But I’m not talking merely about policy — he has also shifted the entire polity more decisively toward the authoritarian style of government. In this respect, yes, the Trump administration has indeed accomplished much more than many of us want to believe.”
Seriously, fuck this guy. Daily Beast: “Michael Avenatti on Thursday tweeted a link to Democratic donation platform ActBlue that appeared to be an O’Rourke donation page, but the fine print on the page noted that, by default, half of the money donated would go to Avenatti’s Fight PAC.”
Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner (R) threatened his opponent, incumbent Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in a Facebook Live video criticizing the negative ads against him, CBS News reports.
Said Wagner: “Governor Wolf, let me tell you, between now and November 6th you’d better put a catcher’s mask on your face, because I’m going to stomp all over your face with golf spikes. I’m going to win this for the state of Pennsylvania, and we’re throwing you out of office.”
I wish that Republicans consistently abhorred character assassins and championed due process and the presumption of innocence.
But it just isn’t so. https://t.co/y1yC6mno4x
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) October 12, 2018
Dallas Morning News: “ActBlue, the online Democratic fund-raising platform, makes it easier than ever for candidates to collect small sums from many people, and to prompt supporters for recurring donations. O’Rourke has brought in at least $25 million that way this year, and based on the latest tally, likely far more.”
Playbook: “Republicans have nothing like ActBlue, and it’s bludgeoning candidates across the country.”
Politico: “Over the last 30 days, close to 100 Republican-funded TV spots casting Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — or both — as villains have aired more than 34,000 times… In three battleground Senate races alone — Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia — ads featuring Pelosi or Clinton blanketed TV screens, running more than 1,100 times in each state.”
“All told, Republican campaigns or affiliated groups sunk $28.4 million into the Clinton and Pelosi messaging over the last month.”
In the GOP imagination, conservatism is the only legitimate expression of power, and they're trying to create that reality. This is what Hillary Clinton meant about withholding civility from a party that wants to destroy what you stand for. She was right. https://t.co/c103pcRRya
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) October 12, 2018
Politico: “During normal times, therapists say, their sessions deal with familiar themes: relationships, self-esteem, everyday coping. Current events don’t usually invade. But numerous counselors said Trump and his convulsive effect on America’s national conversation is giving politics a prominence on the psychologist’s couch not seen since the months after 9/11—another moment in which events were frightening in a way that had widespread emotional consequences.”
“Empirical data bolsters the anecdotal reports from practitioners. The American Psychiatric Association in a May survey found that 39% of people said their anxiety level had risen over the previous year—and 56 percent were either ‘extremely anxious’ or ‘somewhat anxious’ about the impact of politics on daily life. A 2017 study found two-thirds of Americans’ see the nation’s future as a ‘very or somewhat significant source of stress.’”
“Rep. Beto O’Rourke raised an astonishing $38.1 million in three months, as Democrats in Texas and nationwide showered him with donations for his bid to oust Sen. Ted Cruz,” the Dallas Morning News reports.
“The haul smashed previous records for a U.S. Senate contest, and assures that the hard fought race, already the nation’s costliest, remains on top of the 2018 list.”
“O’Rourke’s haul is more than triple the $12 million that Cruz said he raised from July through September.”
The voter who is most hyped about the 2018 elections? Liberal, college-educated, likely female — and secular. https://t.co/Ft6pzusOLA
— Emma Green (@emmaogreen) October 11, 2018
New York Times: “Republican Party leaders are racing to reinforce their candidates in about two-dozen districts, trying to create a barricade around their imperiled majority. They are pouring money and effort mainly into moderate suburban areas… that they see as critical to holding the chamber by even a one-seat margin. And they have begun to pull millions of dollars away from Republican candidates who have fallen substantially behind in once-competitive races.”
“Republicans steering the House effort believe that by intensifying their efforts in a smaller number of districts, they can limit Democratic gains to perhaps 20 seats on Nov. 6 — just short of the 23 seats Democrats need to take over the House.”
“Over the course of 12 months, the U.S. Army discharged more than 500 immigrant enlistees who were recruited across the globe for their language or medical skills and promised a fast track to citizenship in exchange for their service,” the AP reports.
”The Army began booting out those enlistees last year without explanation.”
The "angry mob" stuff isn't just disingenuous; it's another attempt to shift focus away from hugely unpopular GOP policies, especially on health care https://t.co/GXWY1F3kdJ
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 12, 2018
“The Georgia NAACP is preparing to sue Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor, in response to a report that Kemp’s office has put on hold tens of thousands of voter registration applications, most of them from African-Americans, ahead of the election,” Politico reports.
“The injunction would seek to reopen voter registration in Georgia to ensure that 53,000 registrants on hold in Kemp’s office… would be allowed to register for the upcoming election.”
CNN: “Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams’ campaign is calling on Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp to resign following a report his office is using a controversial verification law to effectively suppress the minority vote in their race to become the state’s next governor.”
“The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month,” the Washington Post reports.
“The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate after he walked in on Oct. 2 to obtain an official document before his upcoming wedding, then killed him and dismembered his body.”
“The audio recording in particular provides some of the most persuasive and gruesome evidence that the Saudi team is responsible for Khashoggi’s death.”
New York Times: “Turkish security officials suspect that Mr. Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi murder squad sent by the kingdom’s leadership, and that his body was dismembered with a bone saw and taken out of the building.”
We tracked who has visited Iowa and other early states, written a book and done other pre-presidential stuff. Some of the results surprised me. https://t.co/bbllbmZ9qU
— Perry Bacon Jr. (@perrybaconjr) October 11, 2018
“Tennessee Democrat Phil Bredesen is facing backlash from some of the staunchest supporters of his Senate campaign after coming out in support of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court,” Politicoreports.
“Campaign volunteers have been calling to cancel door-knocking and phone-banking shifts for Bredesen since his statement backing Kavanaugh… At least 22 volunteers so far have reached out to express frustration with the decision.”
Kyrsten Sinema’s anti-war activist past under scrutiny as she runs for Senate
First thing about this BS is that Kyrsten Sinema and her activist bedfellows were largely right about Iraq. Don’t doubt that some of the rationale to get there is a little twisted, but the history is still that they were right. In this, CNN picks up oppo research that is meant to slam her for her associations, but completely bypasses the fact that they were right. These associations don’t have much to do with her Congressional career, but simply picks up the GOP belief that people who are not cheerleading for war are just too radical. Certainly the people who stood up to say that Iraq was not a righteous war were correct. More so that the non-stop breathless cheerleading coverage that provided a needed assist to get into this war. And it didn’t take long for Americans to get the clue that their Government lied to them about Iraq, that their media lied to them about Iraq (not McClatchy) and the f-up that was Iraq was a major impetus behind why Barack Obama got elected.
What CNN should put under scrutiny is why Sinema and McSally continue to vote “billions for military spending…” “while “public opinion has shifted dramatically against the US intervention …”