#annie linskey

[emersoncotter]

Multimedia Journal: Social Media Group @WomenOn20s

The Instagram page @womeonon20s (also https://www.womenon20s.org/) is a campaign to put a woman’s face on the $20 bill and represents the broader movement to increase equality and representation for women. For decades, men have been the face of our currency, leaving US bills not only lacking diversity but also representing men like Andrew Jackson, who was a slave trader and the creator of the Indian Removal Act. During Obama’s second term, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew opened proposals for a new face on the $10 bill over ten months. 

keeping it colorful | @stylbug featured on @womenon20s

Immediately, a group called Women on 20s insisted that Harriet Tubman should be honored, not on the $10 bill, but the more common $20 bill to oust Andrew Jackson. They noted his less-than-stellar history of supporting slavery and relocating Native Americans. Unfortunately, the push for Tubman on the $20 bill means it won’t be updated until the planned 2030 or later redesign, whereas the $10 bill was slated to be redesigned in 2026. The treasury department has confirmed the change by 2030, but promises and efforts to speed up the transition to the new $20 bill have gone unanswered.

The back of the new $10 bill will feature (left to right) Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton | Hulton Archive

This group relates to class in various ways, including representation of gender and race across America. It's no secret that primarily, the white men of history adorn textbooks, monuments, and other historical representations, and the group Women on 20s is out to make a change. This movement draws connections to the work of Alma Lopez and her representations of Chicana Feminism in her work. Lopez’s famous mural Las Four draws a unique connection between gender and race, similar to including Harriet Tubman, a black woman, on the $20 bill. 

An artist's rendering of abolitionist Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill. | Women on 20s

Las Four not only uniquely represents Chicana Feminism, but it was also intentionally placed within the Estrada Courts Mural site. This site contains a mural by Ernesto de la Loza called Los Cuatro Grandes, celebrating four male heroes. Las Four’s placement within this site draws attention to the underrepresentation of women as historical figures and works to remedy it.

Las Four | Alma Lopez

In a parallel fashion, the movement to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill will be the first person of color and woman on US currency while simultaneously expelling Andrew Jackson, a pro-slavery and anti-Native American politician. The movement toward broader representation of women and people of color in America has made great strides in recent years. Although it still has a long way to go, the inclusion of Harriet Tubman, among others, on our currency is a monumental step in the right direction.

Janet Yellen on when Harriet Tubman will appear on the $20 bill | Washington Post

References

Calmes, Jackie. “Harriet Tubman Ousts Andrew Jackson in Change for a $20.” The New York Times, 22 May 2019, www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/us/women-currency-treasury-harriet-tubman.html.

“Estrada Courts (1997) - SOCIAL AND PUBLIC ART RESOURCE CENTER.” SOCIAL AND PUBLIC ART RESOURCE CENTER, 9 June 2023, sparcinla.org/projects/estrada-courts-1997.

Linskey, Annie. “When Will Harriet Tubman Adorn the $20 Bill?” Washington Post, 7 June 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/harriet-tubman-20-bill/2021/06/03/62443b5c-bcd1-11eb-9c90-731aff7d9a0d_story.html.

Washington Post Live. “Janet Yellen on when Harriet Tubman will appear on the $20 bill.” YouTube, 10 Mar. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRZNp8IzNuY.

“Women on 20s.” Women on 20s, www.womenon20s.org.

(@womenon20s) • Instagram photos and videos. www.instagram.com/womenon20s.

[tomorrowusa]

Independent voters are significantly concerned about Trump’s mishandling of classified national security materials and other Trump affronts to the rule of law. 61% say they want the various Trump investigations to continue.

And while Trump Republicans claimed that the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago would energize their own base, it ended up energizing the Democratic base even more.

Also, Democrats have closed the enthusiasm gap with Republicans over the 2022 midterm elections. That’s most likely a result of the reaction to the GOP-dominated US Supreme Court’s overturning the constitutional right to abortion.

Of course all the polls in the world don’t mean anything unless we all turn out to vote this autumn.

Be A Voter - Vote Save America

[privatshop]

"Pulitzers: Capital Gazette wins for coverage of newsroom massacre" http://www.englishnews.top/index.php/2019/04/16/pulitzers-capital-gazette-wins-for-coverage-of-newsroom-massacre/

[dhaaruni]

I don’t know exactly how to put this and in no way do I expect anything from you, but I thought you might empathize. I feel like NYT and WaPo are full of those terrible journalists who actively resent prominent Democrats for not being the moneymaker Trump was, and worse, who gang up on random women online under the guise of progressivism. I don’t want to read their publications and I’m not sure what else to read because these are generally regarded as reliable. (1/2)

I swear I’m not trying to be anti-intellectual; I am the first person to admit I’m not an expert on a lot of things, and having professionals decode media jargon for me is incredibly helpful. It’s just that when I see NYT articles headlined “It’s not just about abortion” I’m like “It literally is.” I genuinely want to stay informed but I don’t want to do it by reading stuff by people who are sort of terrible human beings online (Idk about offline, but those profiles are public), you know? 2/2

No, I totally get what you're saying.

A NYT reporter got fired for tweeting that she got "chills" when Joe Biden's plane landed in DC on inauguration day and a WaPo reporter got fired for writing that Kobe Bryant was accused of rape in 2004 and the case got settled when he died last year, and yet, the Times and WaPo gladly employ people like Annie Linskey who "joke" tweet about Joe Biden's dead first wife and two dead children and Maureen Dowd, who'd accuse Hillary Clinton of killing Princess Diana if she was able to, and even kept Liz Bruenig on payroll until Bruenig left for The Atlantic, like the rot is absolutely inherent to our mainstream media at this point in time.

I think the only thing to do is to keep yourself objective, like actually check out the sources they link and don't just accept their conclusions, read a variety of sources, NYT and WaPo but also like, the Wall Street Journal, which I get from work, and I pay for the New Yorker and NYMag, both of which I recommend. Also, I follow Eric Boehlert on Twitter, and his Press Run newsletter talks a lot about the media being awful for decades at this point.

[grandhotelabyss]

—Annie Linskey, “Inside the Biden Administration’s Failure to Avoid a Covid Testing Shortfall”

No. Under no circumstances. I will move to the Texas countryside, to the Florida Everglades; I will take up residence in that hovel Cormac McCarthy made his first or second wife live in, when they had to bathe in the river. I will vote for the Republican Party, I will vote for the ghosts of Michel Foucault and Ivan Illich, of William Blake and D. H. Lawrence. But under no circumstance will I be convinced to see myself or still more other people as nothing other than menacing bundles of pathogen—a truly terminal alienation, a severe de-evolution even from Blake’s Human Abstract or Heidegger’s standing reserve—that require unremitting technocratic surveillance to be allowed a human life or dignity or access to community. Now if this were ebola...but that’s how they get you, the hypotheticals, the coronatarian two-step: the blizzard of confused studies and alarmist anecdotes followed by the immediate move to some fascist philosophical exaltation of our ideal biological duty or the sacred and inalienable right of the state-corporate entity, the sovereign corporation. And it’s not ebola. However bad it may be, and I don’t doubt that it is, and I take sensible precaution to avoid and mitigate it, it’s been blown out of proportion by forces who show every sign of having a mission, witting or un-, not to preserve public health, but to forcibly tear the metaphysics from the human body, without which our true health, as the kind of being that we are, is impossible—to reduce us to shreds and patches, following which, if history is any guide, the wind will blow us away.

[go-redgirl]

72 hours at Camp David: Inside Biden's lagging response to the fall of Afghanistan Ashley Parker, Tyler Pager and Annie Linskey , The Washington Post Aug. 17, 2021

WASHINGTON - Marine One lifted off Friday at 1:36 p.m. for Camp David bearing a leader headed on a long-planned August vacation: President Joe Biden, clad in a black baseball cap and a light-blue short-sleeved shirt, carried a lone piece of luggage and was accompanied by his wife and a small retinue of staff.

But when the president's official helicopter touched back down 72 hours later in Washington, the leader who emerged was preparing to address the biggest foreign policy crisis of his presidency - a rapidly devolving catastrophe in Afghanistan that has left the administration scrambling to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals before the Taliban's stunningly swift takeover of the nation is complete.

One close Biden foreign policy ally, who is in regular contact with the White House and the State Department, said the president's team would never have let him leave for Camp David had they known just how quickly Afghanistan would implode amid the president's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops by Sept. 11.

That assessment was buttressed by the words of Biden and his top foreign policy officials in the weeks leading up to the crisis. In June, for instance, Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he did not expect an "immediate deterioration in the situation" when U.S. forces began to draw down over the summer."Whatever happens in Afghanistan, if there is a significant deterioration in security - that could well happen, we have discussed this before - I don't think it's going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday," Blinken said.But that's almost exactly what happened, as the situation unraveled with quicksilver speed over the first three days of Biden's trip to Camp David, which he curtailed Monday to return to the White House to address the nation. 

He had not spoken publicly about the crisis in six days.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

This holiday season, the Democratic National Committee gave the gift of one last primary debate in 2019. The stage featured just seven candidates, and despite a sleepy first hour, there was a lot of tension in the two-and-a-half-hour affair. Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg came under fire from the rest of the field, fielding attacks from Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren in particular. According to the FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, which used Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel to interview the same respondents before and after the debate, Klobuchar had a good night, attracting the most new potential support. Former Vice President Joe Biden also did well, earning the highest debate performance score from the viewers in our survey.

Maybe you were out holiday shopping — or watching the new Star Wars movie! — and missed it (hey, we don’t blame you), or you just want to know more about how the December debate may affect the race as we move into 2020. Either way, here’s the Democratic debate, summed up in 6 charts:

Which candidates performed best?

To kick us off, which candidates did viewers think had a strong performance? A weak one? To answer this, we compared each candidate’s pre-debate favorability rating1 to viewers’ ratings of his or her debate performance to see how candidates performed. This time, Biden walked away with the highest marks from respondents in our poll. But if it’s hard to see a decisive winner from last night, that’s because Biden, Warren and Sanders all performed roughly as well as we would expect given their pre-debate favorability. Buttigieg and Steyer received the worst marks for their performances, relative to their pre-debate favorability ratings.

How did voters’ priorities affect their views of the candidates?

According to our Ipsos survey, nearly two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters prefer a candidate who has a good chance of beating President Trump over someone who shares similar stances with them on the issues. How these types of voters evaluate the candidates and their performances can vary, though, even if the differences are relatively small.

Voters who prioritize beating Trump thought Biden had the best debate performance, with Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar and Buttigieg tied with the second-highest marks. Among voters who prioritized issue stances, Sanders and Yang fared best.

Among voters who prioritize beating Trump, Biden did best

How well debate-watchers thought candidates performed in the sixth Democratic debate, by which type of candidate they prefer

Type of candidate preferred candidate Similar issue positions Able to beat trump Biden 2.8 3.3 Warren 2.9 3.1 Sanders 3.1 3.1 Klobuchar 2.7 3.1 Buttigieg 2.5 3.1 Yang 3.0 3.0 Steyer 2.5 2.8

From a survey of 3,543 likely Democratic primary voters who were surveyed between Dec. 13 and Dec. 18. The same people were surveyed again from Dec. 19 to Dec. 20; 720 responded to the second wave and said they watched the debate. The average ratings are out of 4 points, where 4 is best and 1 is worst.

Source: Ipsos/FiveThirtyEight

Who left a good impression?

We also wanted to see if any of the candidates managed to leave a good impression, as captured by their net favorability rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) before and after the debate. By this metric, Yang and Klobuchar saw the largest gains, roughly six points each. But even with these increases, their net favorability scores are still lower than much of the rest of the field — better-known candidates like Biden, Sanders and Warren are viewed more favorably.

Yang and Klobuchar made positive impressions

Change in net favorability for candidates in a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll taken before and after the December Democratic primary debate

Net favorability candidate before debate after debate change Yang +16.1 +22.4 +6.3 Klobuchar +11.0 +17.1 +6.1 Steyer +4.3 +7.3 +3.1 Warren +40.0 +43.0 +2.9 Sanders +40.5 +42.6 +2.1 Biden +43.2 +45.1 +1.9 Buttigieg +29.4 +27.5 -1.9

From a survey of 3,543 likely Democratic primary voters who were surveyed between Dec. 13 and Dec. 18. The same people were surveyed again from Dec. 19 to Dec. 20; 1,908 responded to the second wave.

Who spoke the most?

Klobuchar stole the mic Thursday, speaking the most words of any candidate. This was the first time the Minnesota senator earned this distinction, significantly improving upon her position in the last debate, where she came in fifth for words spoken. Buttigieg wasn’t too far off from Klobuchar, though, speaking just 200 fewer words.

Who held the floor?

Number of words candidates spoke in the sixth Democratic debate

Candidate Words Spoken Amy Klobuchar 3,557

–

Pete Buttigieg 3,327

–

Elizabeth Warren 3,087

–

Bernie Sanders 2,891

–

Joe Biden 2,869

–

Tom Steyer 1,937

–

Andrew Yang 1,729

–

Source: Debate Transcript via ABC News

The fact that Klobuchar and Buttigieg spoke the most last night may be surprising given that they are significantly behind Biden, Sanders and Warren in the national polls. Normally, higher-polling candidates tend to get more air time, but in Thursday’s debate, the relationship between a candidate’s polling average2 and the amount of words he or she spoke was not particularly strong.3 For instance, while Sanders spoke about as much as his polling average would suggest, Biden spoke far less than expected.

Who mentioned Trump the most?

The candidates may not have spoken for equal amounts of time, but one thing they did have in common was name-dropping Trump. Klobuchar, for example, talked about Trump way more than Warren, who only mentioned him once. (This doesn’t seem to be a new strategy for Warren: She came in second to last in Trump mentions at the November debate, too, saying his name just twice.)

Who talked about Trump?

How often Trump’s name was mentioned by candidates in the sixth Democratic debate

Candidate Trump Mentions Amy Klobuchar 11

–

Bernie Sanders 8

–

Joe Biden 6

–

Pete Buttigieg 6

–

Tom Steyer 4

–

Andrew Yang 4

–

Elizabeth Warren 1

–

Source: Debate Transcript via ABC News

On average, each candidate said Trump’s name about six times. But of course, this doesn’t cover every reference to Trump, as some didn’t call out the president by name — like when Sanders said “we have a president who is a pathological liar.”

Do you want even more debate coverage?

Cool graphics from other sites:

Going into the debate, The New York Times had a cool primer, which included tidbits like which candidates they expected to attack each other. It’s fun to look back now and see whether they were correct; notably, their speculation that Buttigieg might come under fire proved prescient, particularly in the back and forths with Warren and Klobuchar.

And if you want to see exactly how many times the candidates attacked one another, NBC News tracked it! Buttigieg came under fire the most, while Sanders dished it out more than any other candidate.

The New York Times also tracked how long each candidate spoke on each issue. Sanders spoke the most about health care, while Klobuchar dominated the conversation on electability. And foreign policy was the longest-discussed topic of the evening, racking up 15 minutes total.

And here’s more great post-debate analysis:

Our colleague Rick Klein at ABC News on the debate’s focus on electability and attacks on Buttigieg.

Annie Linskey at The Washington Post looked into the role gender played in the final question at the debate, finding that when asked to decide between giving a gift to one of their fellow debaters or asking for forgiveness from one of them, the female candidates overwhelmingly asked for forgiveness, while most of the male candidates opted to give a gift (namely, one of their books).

PolitiFact’s live fact-check.

And of course, many, many winners and losers!

Vox

CNN

The Washington Post

Fox News

The New York Times

NBC News

USA Today

OK, we’ll stop.

But really, all you need is … our debate coverage:

Our live blog.

Our post-debate politics chat.

Our before-and-after polling with Ipsos.

[hummingzone]

Why Tom Brady's 'gentle' roast of Trump at Biden's White House was actually 'deeply vicious'

Why Tom Brady’s ‘gentle’ roast of Trump at Biden’s White House was actually ‘deeply vicious’

President Biden hosted the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the White House on Tuesday, both Biden and star quarterback Tom Brady “wearing sunglasses and grins,” Annie Linskey writes at The Washington Post. “It was in many ways the most traditional of presidential rituals — the visit of a championship team to the White House, allowing athletic stars and political leaders to bask in…

[parcival2]

[The Washington Post] Biden backs bipartisan stimulus plan, urging immediate action as economy stalls and virus surges

Biden backs bipartisan stimulus plan, urging immediate action as economy stalls and virus surges

By Toluse Olorunnipa, Annie Linskey and Jeff Stein

[buddylistsocial]

How the Republican National Convention came undone

How the Republican National Convention came undone

By Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey,

For months, President Trump insisted on packed crowds at his nominating convention.

“Since the day I came down the escalator, I’ve never had an empty seat and I find the biggest stadiums,” he told North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D)in a phone call on May 29, according to two people familiar with the call who requested anonymity to share its…

[2plan22]

RT @AnnieLinskey: When Symone Sanders first joined the Biden campaign, she wasn’t part of the main (all white) strategy call. But she got herself added. My take on how Biden’s highest profile black staffer is helping him the moment, and handling pressure from many sides. https://t.co/2L92zqu9gm 2PLAN22 http://twitter.com/2PLAN22/status/1279124087588163589

When Symone Sanders first joined the Biden campaign, she wasn’t part of the main (all white) strategy call. But she got herself added. My take on how Biden’s highest profile black staffer is helping him the moment, and handling pressure from many sides. https://t.co/2L92zqu9gm

— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) July 3, 2020

[oldguardaudio]

Elizabeth Warren says she met two little girls whose Halloween costumes will pay tribute to her wealth tax (and WaPo journo seems pretty stoked)

Elizabeth Warren says she met two little girls whose Halloween costumes will pay tribute to her wealth tax (and WaPo journo seems pretty stoked)

This is apparently Elizabeth Warren’s contribution to Halloween:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says that she met two little girls in N.H. who are planning a "two cents" Halloween costume in homage to her proposed wealth tax.

It will definitely be a scary costume to some.

— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) October 30, 2019

Such a scary costume! Definitely!

For those of you who don’t get the reference — and…

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Wednesday morning we got the latest big development in the still-developing Ukraine story. First there was news of a whistleblower complaint alleging that President Trump pressured Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans to open an official impeachment inquiry of the president. And today, the White House released a summary of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky.

At this stage, there’s still a lot we don’t know. We don’t have the full whistleblower complaint (although it is expected to be released this week and the whistleblower may even testify before Congress). And testimony is also expected from acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire tomorrow on the whistleblower’s report. So, again, there are still a lot of moving parts. But let’s take stock of where things stand now that we have the White House’s summary of the phone call:

How bad is this for Trump?

Does the impeachment inquiry announced by Pelosi on Tuesday continue to build?

How have elected Republicans reacted, particularly in the U.S. Senate?

No. 1 first: How bad was the summary for Trump?

micah (Micah Cohen, managing editor): Bad?

Actually, I think the real answer is … “Very, very bad?” And the very’s are important there, but so is the question mark.

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): It’s bad — especially because we haven’t yet seen the whistleblower complaint, which apparently has multiple incidents, not just this call. That is — it’s especially bad if this is the least-bad thing that could have come out.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): This definitely has a lot of momentum — it’s a big deal, even if it doesn’t change a lot of the mechanics of what’s already being done in the House to investigate the president.

And yes, it doesn’t look great for Trump whatsoever.

ameliatd: And the whistleblower is apparently willing to testify, so we’re presumably going to get more information about the circumstances around the call.

The Trump talking point is that there was no explicit quid pro quo, but the call is extremely suggestive. In the summary, Trump starts by talking about aid to Ukraine, then pivots to asking for a “favor.”

And if this was part of a larger pattern where the aid is more explicitly connected to Trump’s requests, that would be really, really bad. That’s what remains to be seen — what made the whistleblower file the report? It wasn’t just this call.

clare.malone: Right, as people have pointed out, this call summary is just one component of a larger report.

So, if this is the part that the White House was comfortable making public, it does lead one to wonder what the part they wanted to suppress has in it.

sarahf: Yeah, and this was something Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen made clear in his testimony before Congress — this is part of how Trump operates. He doesn’t ask for people to outright commit a crime or lie, but he does make it clear what he wants “in his way.”

I guess I’m just unconvinced that this will shift opinions among those who already support the president (or independents).

clare.malone: Well, Sarah, I guess I would agree with you that it probably won’t change the views of his most dyed-in-the-wool supporters, but it could definitely shake the confidence of voters on the fence about him.

Which is the reason why Democrats from moderate districts apparently seem to feel so comfortable coming out in support of impeachment. I think this case (Ukraine) is much more clearly understood by people to be … shady … than the Mueller situation was.

ameliatd: I agree with you on that, Clare. As someone who spent a lot of time explaining the ins and outs of everything Mueller was investigating (and what he found), Ukraine appears to be a much clearer story — even without evidence of explicit quid pro quo.

micah: Well, this sorta gets at what I think is a central question now … politically, at least. We already know that voters have a high bar for impeachment. Will asking a foreign leader to investigate his most likely 2020 opponent clear that bar? Or will voters want evidence of an explicit quid pro quo?

The White House is very clearly trying to draw the conversation around a clear quid pro quo.

Which makes sense — as the call summary already proves Trump asked for the investigation, I’m not sure what other options they have.

clare.malone: Right, and one thing I think we should mention is that the call summary potentially leaves a lot out:

The biggest clue that the Ukraine conversation has been condensed is on the first page: It's a 30 min convo that's been conveyed in just five pages. pic.twitter.com/Ge2WDMJzEv

— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) September 25, 2019

Per this tweet, the conversation was 30 minutes and the words in the summary don’t necessarily compute with a normally-paced 30 minute call.

ameliatd: Some people are also pointing out the ellipses in the summary, Clare, which are concentrated in the sections where Trump’s talking about what he wants Zelensky to investigate.

micah: Does the fact that the White House is trying to draw the line at quid pro quo make you think there won’t be evidence of that? Or is it just that that’s kinda their only avenue left on this story?

I guess … who knows!?!?!

ameliatd: I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no explicit quid pro quo, just because as Sarah says, that doesn’t seem to be how Trump operates. At least, explicit quid pro quo in the sense of Trump saying, “Kiss your aid from us goodbye unless you investigate the Bidens.”

sarahf: But given that conversations aren’t recorded in the Oval office anymore (thanks, Nixon!) … won’t there always be a question of what was said (or wasn’t said) hanging over the conversation?

micah: Unless … Ukraine made a recording!!!

IDK, even in that call summary there wasn’t a lot of dancing or insinuating!

That’s kinda where I shake out on all this for now in terms of Trump’s political risk: If the call summary represents the lower bound, there’s a LOT of risk to the president.

sarahf: I still think though that there’s a possibility that some dismiss this as, “It sounded like the president,” à la Sen. Shelley Moore Capito here.

ameliatd: Also, Zelensky actually seemed pretty willing on the call to investigate — he talked about his new prosecutor and then told Trump, “He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.” Not sure if/how that changes things, or if he was just saying what he thought Trump wanted to hear, but I wonder if that’s another place where additional context will help clarify.

clare.malone: Though, to that point, Amelia, we have this report: https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/1176506530671353857

sarahf: But OK, let’s talk about the *risk* for the president that this all poses. According to the New York Times, 208 Democrats (as of midday Wednesday) support opening an impeachment inquiry. That represents a dramatic uptick in members supporting this move — Democrats need only 218 to actually open a motion.

Do we think that comes next?

Or what are Democrats’ next move?

micah: Just to start, it seems like Democrats will be pretty unified around the impeachment inquiry. I’ve seen some agita around keeping the inquiry focused on Ukraine — rather than folding in other potential transgressions — but I think we can expect the vast majority of Democrats to stay in line. As you said, Sarah, that was the big shift over the last week.

In terms of what comes next …

clare.malone: Testimony from the whistleblower could be really powerful.

ameliatd: Yeah, Democrats will want the whistleblower to testify. And they’ll probably also subpoena Rudy Giuliani, given that he’s all over this call.

The benefit of formally opening an impeachment proceeding is that it gives the House a much stronger legal position in getting documents and testimony.

clare.malone: Yeah, this is a real battle of governmental branches right here!

I bet high school civics teachers are losing their shit this week with the real life examples.

micah: Lots of juicy Constitutional questions!

Anyway, I do think it’ll be crucial to watch how focused Democrats can keep things on this Ukraine story.

If the public thinks Democrats are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, public opinion probably won’t move much. And Democrats need public opinion to move.

clare.malone: I wonder how much they will be chased by the ghosts of that letter from Attorney General William Barr, the Mueller testimony, etc. Perhaps they’ve learned lessons about how to keep the public focused on the aspects of the narrative that are most beneficial to their impeachment case.

Because as we’ve said before, impeachment is a political act, above all. It’s not frippery to say that the Democrats need to maintain a strong narrative for the public to glom onto. It’s not a lofty thing to say, but a lot of this is PR.

micah: Yeah, to stay on public opinion for a sec …

This is from Nate’s piece yesterday:

Heretofore, quite a lot of voters have both disapproved of Trump’s conduct and disapproved of impeaching him.

Why this gap has persisted isn’t entirely clear. Pelosi’s reluctance on impeachment undoubtedly dissuaded some Democratic voters from getting on board; the most recent Quinnipiac poll found only 61 percent of Democrats in favor of impeachment and 29 percent opposed. Those numbers may increase now that House leadership is coming around to impeachment.

The same poll, however, found independent voters mostly against impeachment — 62 percent opposed it to 28 percent in favor. That’s despite Trump having only a 35 percent approval rating among independents in the poll. So impeachment has given Democrats problems among swing voters as well.

So that, to me, is something to watch:

Do Democrats now rally behind impeachment? (Probably?)

Do Independents move towards impeachment? (

)

sarahf: And on the subject of public opinion, this poll dropped after we published Nate’s piece yesterday, but a new Quinnipiac poll that was in the field from Sept 19-23, captured a 5 percentage point shift in favor of impeachment since it last asked the question in July.

micah: Yeah, there’s some Democratic movement towards impeachment — support among Democrats jumped 12 points, from 61 percent in the Quinnipiac poll Nate referenced (which was the most recent when he wrote that article) to 73 percent now.

And I think that’s where most of the overall shift comes from right now. Support for impeachment among independents crept up 6 points, from 28 percent to 34 percent.

ameliatd: That’s why I think the hearings and testimony that unfold over the next few days/weeks are so, so key. I generally think the comparisons to Watergate wear kind of thin, but public hearings and testimony were crucially important in building the case against Nixon. And the Democrats have basically gotten none of that so far because the Trump administration has so successfully stonewalled them.

sarahf: Which brings me to our third point — for some of the public opinion shift we’re talking about to happen — you need more than just Democrats and independents to say they support impeaching Trump, right?

Because ultimately, we’ve got a divided Congress, which means even if the House votes to open an impeachment inquiry and even passes articles of impeachment, it would still likely die in the Republican-controlled Senate, hurting Democrats’ ability to control some of this narrative, no?

clare.malone: I suppose you need the on-the-bubble Republican voter to find this whole thing distasteful.

Ye olde Reluctant Trump Voter.

sarahf: So far on the GOP side, only Sen. Mitt Romney has spoken out against Trump on the Ukraine story.

No GOP member of the House currently supports an impeachment inquiry. (Although on Tuesday, the Senate did unanimously pass a nonbinding resolution calling on the Trump administration to release the whistleblower complaint — so there’s still the possibility more Republicans come forward.)

micah: But I don’t think it’s particularly telling that elected Republicans are sticking with Trump in the wake of this.

Wherever the goal posts are on this story — asking a foreign leader to interfere in a U.S. election, quid pro quo, etc. — you’d expect Republicans to use the most pro-Trump ones …

Especially in the early days.

clare.malone: Yep. It’s very hard to imagine this Republican Senate, in particular, turning against Trump.

Though, here’s what Sen. Susan Collins has said, FWIW

Susan Collins says the Trump call summary/transcript “raises a number of important questions”

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 25, 2019

micah: I mean, that’s pretty weak sauce from Collins.

clare.malone: She, of course, is in her own predicament as an endangered more-moderate member.

micah: Yeah, she’ll be interesting to watch as she’s in a tough re-election fight.

But on the question of if and how Republicans start to move against Trump, I thought this was really smart from FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman:

If you’ve ever been at a dinner party, you’ll understand the following dynamic: It’s late. The conversation is deadly dull. Dessert still hasn’t been served. You’re bored and exhausted and want nothing more than to go home and go to bed. But you don’t want to be the first person to leave.Eventually, somebody decides it’s grown late enough. She makes an excuse to leave. Now there’s safety in numbers. You can leave because other people are leaving. And the dinner party ends. Suddenly.

ameliatd: I do wonder what it would take to get more than your standard “this-is-troubling-I-have-questions” response from congressional Republicans. Does someone like Romney have to go out on a limb to give other people cover?

micah: Amelia, I think Lee’s article speaks to that:

The insight here borrows from political scientist Timur Kuran’s classic work Private Truth, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. The logic is straightforward: In social and political situations, people often have private preferences that are costly to express. So they keep quiet to maintain social status or sometimes personal safety. They say and do what they think they are supposed to say and do to get along. Hence, the “Public Lies” part of the title.

But sometimes the calculus changes. Sometimes a critical mass expresses a dangerous opinion. This empowers others to speak up. Then even more folks feel empowered. And then even more. And then there is a social revolution.

So, in theory, if Republicans reach a critical mass of members who want to defect — and I have no idea if we will reach that mass or how big that mass has to be — GOP defections could sorta happen all at once.

clare.malone: Under that rubric, was Sen. John McCain’s surprise healthcare vote an Irish goodbye?

(I digress)

micah: LOL

Well-played.

On the podcast, our stand-in for the mainstream of the Republican Party has always been Pat Toomey … has he said anything?

Ah, here ya go … the “Full Toomey”!

That was from Sunday — so before the call summary was released, but Toomey said:”It is not appropriate for any candidate for federal office — certainly including the sitting president — to ask for assistance from a foreign country. That’s not appropriate. But I don’t know that that’s what happened here.”

So if Toomey follows through on that line of thinking, maybe there is some room for GOP defection short of quid pro quo.

sarahf: I don’t know. My thought is the more this plays out in the public eye (the whistleblower report, multiple congressional hearings, etc.), the more the issue that Micah and Clare raised of “did Trump fail to uphold his constitutional duties” gets lost in the conversation, and the question of impeachment remains politicized along party lines.

clare.malone: So that goes back to the point about how Democrats will control the narrative. Democrats have to continue to be clear about what the impeachment charges would likely be about — essentially, dereliction of constitutional duty.

ameliatd: I mean, I do wonder if impeachment has become so closely tied in the public eye to criminal activity that it becomes harder for Democrats to make a clear case. That was one of the things I found most interesting about the Mueller investigation — everyone was so focused on whether there was a crime, which then made it harder to pivot to impeachment. So does it help here that there’s no special prosecutor to start dropping indictments? Or does it make it more complicated to build a narrative?

clare.malone: I think it probably makes it easier, Amelia?

sarahf: Ha, I’d say more complicated? Because now you just have partisan actors, whereas Mueller was at least thought of as impartial.

ameliatd: That does actually feel like an important difference here — with the Russia investigation, House Democrats kept leaning on Mueller to dig up some smoking gun. Here they’re clearly on their own, so maybe they’ll actually be more focused and effective in building their case.

clare.malone: Mueller wasn’t in on the PR game, either. He didn’t leak, he didn’t do interviews, etc. So this time around, it might be easier for Democrats to coordinate a strategy and message, especially now that this is all likely to unfold on more of a political battle field.

micah: Yeah, great points. So maybe it is better for Democrats.

But IDK, I feel like Democrats will have a hard time fighting the impression that Amelia mentioned — that there has to be criminal conduct to justify impeachment.

ameliatd: Right, Mueller wasn’t focused on any of these constitutional questions — he was just trying to figure out if crimes had been committed. Whereas a Democratic investigation will be much broader, and it will be public, which means it’s (potentially) easier to build momentum and make a case for unethical or unconstitutional conduct by Trump, rather than illegal conduct.

clare.malone: On-the-fly transparency rather than months of behind the scenes information and fact-gathering!

The thing that was interesting about the Mueller investigation was that so much was built upon reading between the lines on statements from Mueller’s office. I presume it will be much easier this time to build a public narrative, and sustain said narrative while you’re dropping breadcrumbs of stories week by week, day by day.

ameliatd: I do think there are plenty of ways for this to go south for the Democrats, though. If you’re building that narrative in public, it means you actually have to have effective and dramatic testimony. And if they don’t — that’s fodder for Trump and his allies.

sarahf: OK, to wrap …

There’s a lot of moving pieces still and a lot we just don’t know. What are you going to be paying attention to moving forward?

ameliatd: What’s in the whistleblower complaint??

micah: THIS ^^^

sarahf: You think that’s the key piece here, Amelia?

ameliatd: I do, and I am also so curious to know who the whistleblower is.

clare.malone: That!

What Amelia said!

ameliatd: Like, if this is a senior intelligence official — that testimony is going to be bananas.

clare.malone: That’s what I’m most interested in, too.

They’re like the unnamed star of a highly anticipated movie.

ameliatd: Especially since that person allegedly wants to testify. We saw with Mueller what happens when your witness really doesn’t want to be there, but those hearings can actually be pretty

if you’ve got someone who wants to talk.

(I guess

by the standards of congressional hearings — which I will admit is a low bar.)

micah: More generally what I’m looking for …

To what extent does evidence of quid pro quo become the red line in terms of the narrative, especially for the public and elected Republicans. You’re already seeing the White House and congressional Republicans pushing that as the criteria. But will the media buy into that and will the public? Of course, that could also bite Republicans in the end if that evidence does emerge!

Sorta redundant with No. 1, but … POLLS! What do Americans think of all this?

This is all crazy, though!!! There are huge, huge risks for Trump, Republicans and Democrats!

[politiciandirect]

Black farmers say Warren’s plan wouldn’t solve their biggest problem

Black farmers say Warren’s plan wouldn’t solve their biggest problem

Annie Linskey

National political reporter focused on the 2020 presidential campaign

August 31 at 4:58 AM

More than 60 black farmers, advocates and academics have signed onto a letter critiquing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s farm plan, saying it fails to adequately help African American farmers.

The letter, being circulated among liberal agriculture and civil rights activists, says…

[parcival2]

[The Washington Post] Trump’s escalating attacks on election prompt fears of a constitutional crisis

Trump’s escalating attacks on election prompt fears of a constitutional crisis

By Philip Rucker, Amy Gardner and Annie Linskey