President Trump “said that ending the practice of separating children from their families at border crossings has been ‘a disaster’ that has resulted in a surge of people coming into the country illegally,” the Washington Post reports. “Trump said the practice had served as an effective ‘disincentive’ for people who wish to enter the country illegally.”
Said Trump: “Now you don’t get separated, and while that sounds nice and all, what happens is you have literally you have ten times as many families coming up because they’re not going to be separated from their children. It’s a disaster.”
So Trump is returning to the two things that sent his poll numbers into the high 20s and low 30s: defending Nazis and family separations. He cannot help himself. And now he is adding a third….
President Trump revived on Saturday night what is fast becoming a standard, and inaccurate, refrain about doctors “executing babies,” the New York Times reports. Said Trump: “The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”
“The comments are the latest in a long string of incendiary statements from the president on abortion.”
“Attorney General William Barr has warned Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee he won’t show up to this week’s highly anticipated hearing if they stick to the format the chairman has proposed for the questioning,” CNN reports. “Skipping this week’s hearing would amount to a dramatic escalation in the growing fight between the Trump administration and House Democrats over a range of oversight requests, including over access to the unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller, the subject of Thursday’s hearing.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said Sunday that Attorney General Bill Barr is “not going to tell the committee how to conduct its hearing, period.” The blunt statement from Nadler came as CNN reported that Barr objected to the conditions Nadler set for Barr’s upcoming appearance before the committee.
“The witness is not going to tell the committee how to conduct its hearing, period,” Nadler told CNN. If Barr doesn’t comply with the committee’s requests, Nadler said, “then we will have to subpoena him, and we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena.”
“The fact of the matter is, Robert E. Lee was a great tactician. Was not a great person. Robert E. Lee was a slave owner and a brutal slave master. Thankfully, he lost that war. And I find it kind of interesting that the president is now glorifying a loser. He always said that he hated losers. Robert E. Lee was a loser.”
— Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), on This Week.
Robert Reich: “Such a blanket edict fits a dictator of a banana republic, not the president of a constitutional republic founded on separation of powers.”
“If Congress cannot question the people who are making policy, or obtain critical documents, Congress cannot function as a coequal branch of government. If Congress cannot get information about the executive branch, there is no longer any separation of powers, as sanctified in the US constitution.”
“There is only one power – the power of the president to rule as he wishes. Which is what Donald Trump has sought all along.”
Hillary Clinton warned the Democratic candidates ahead of 2020 to be wary of interference in the presidential election, CNN reports. Said Clinton: “You could work your heart out, you could get the nomination, and there would still be factors that would undermine a legitimate election.”
“After four months of campaigning, the Democratic presidential race remains wide open, with the bulk of the electorate still uncommitted,” according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
“Asked to name the candidate they currently support, 54% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents did not volunteer anyone. That figure is little changed from 56% in January, despite a slew of candidate announcements, vigorous campaigning in the early primary and caucus states, multiple cable television town halls and interviews and constant fundraising appeals.”
“Among the minority who expressed a preference, former vice president Joe Biden holds a tenuous advantage over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).”
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told CBS News that in addition to the Rust Belt states that were key to the 2016 electoral map – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – the campaign is also is setting its sights on Minnesota, New Mexico and New Hampshire, which Hillary Clinton won four years ago.
Parscale added that Nevada and Colorado might be winnable too.
New York Times: “As House Democrats return this week to Washington after a two-week recess, they will find a Capitol consumed by the report of Mr. Mueller, the special counsel. A private meeting of the House Democratic caucus on Tuesday promises to be heated, as do Senate and House hearings on Wednesday and Thursday with Attorney General William P. Barr.”
“But rank-and-file Democrats are not being propelled by their constituents into a headlong confrontation over impeaching the president. In town hall-style meetings and meet-and-greets across the country last week, constituents bemoaned Mr. Trump’s policies, groaned at his refusal to heed congressional subpoenas and fretted over what they saw as an erosion of the rule of law.”
“But there were few signs of an uprising to demand a quick judgment that the misdeeds laid out in the special counsel’s report constituted the kinds of “high crimes and misdemeanors” worthy of trying to remove the president from office.”
Washington Post: “Richard Lugar, a six-term Indiana senator who became one of the foremost voices on U.S. foreign policy — championing efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, oust Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos and secure the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction — and whose primary defeat in 2012 by a tea party candidate shocked the political establishment, died. He was 87.”
“The cause was complications from chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, a neurological disorder.”
President Trump told a Wisconsin rally that his administration is sending undocumented migrants to sanctuary cities. Said Trump: “Last month alone, 100,000 illegal immigrants arrived at our borders, placing a massive strain on communities … and public resources, like nobody has ever seen before. Now we’re sending many of them to sanctuary cities, thank you very much. They ain’t too happy about it.” He added: “I’m proud to tell you that was actually my sick idea.”
It was, but you are not sending them.
Washington Post: “Over the past weeks, O’Rourke has subtly adjusted his campaign style and tone in ways that counteract the criticism and mockery he has faced.”
“O’Rourke’s handling of many Democratic voters’ needs for a rhetorically different approach has developed in full view. In his 2018 U.S. Senate campaign, O’Rourke favored a sunny, optimistic pitch, only rarely castigating his Republican opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz.”
“He has tried to stay true to that approach, but he now calls the president ‘racist’ and regularly compares his rhetoric to Hitler’s, an escalation of his prior criticism of Trump and his administration.”
“Spain’s Socialist party stood poised to win the lion’s share of votes in a contentious snap election Sunday that will determine the future of the country’s legislature in a moment of bitter political polarization,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Socialists, the party of incumbent prime minister Pedro Sánchez, had won 123 parliamentary seats with over 70 percent of the vote counted. While the traditional center-right Popular Party appeared to suffer heavy losses, Vox, the extreme right, was on course to enter parliament for the first time.”
The Guardian: “With nearly 90% of votes counted, it seems certain that Pedro Sánchez’s socialist party will be able to govern without the support of the Catalan nationalists that brought down his previous administration, leaving the pro-independence movement with a voice in parliament but little leverage.”
Donald Trump to become first president to speak at anti-LGBT hate group’s annual summit
Why I am no longer buying into the Independent voter chase. This man is pursuing his voters to the worst ends of American discourse — and there will be Independent voters who will readily follow him. Who already did. Dems need to focus on the votes we can actually get.