Perhaps aware that the State Senate wouldn’t listen to him anyway, Governor Paterson refrained today from saying whether he thought convicted spouse abuser Hiram Monserrate should step down from his Senate post. [NYP]
THE FEED
And then there is the battleground state pageant
CBS News first asked which candidates voters are considering supporting — and told them they could pick as many or as few as they liked. (As with many decisions people make, early in the process they’ll narrow their options before settling on one.)
Biden gets the most consideration, from a majority 55% of Democrats. Warren (49%), Harris (45%) and Bernie Sanders (43%) are trailing closely in that regard. Pete Buttigieg is being considered by just under a third (32%) across the earliest states. And in keeping with their view that the field is too large, on average the number of candidates voters are considering is actually relatively small — just under four.
Biden is the most effective at translating consideration into a first-choice vote. He leads across the early states in vote preference with 31% of Democratic primary voters, compared to Warren’s 17%, Sanders’$2 16%, and Harris’$2 10%. Biden converts most of those considering him into picking him as their first choice when pressed, but fewer of those considering Warren or Sanders — roughly a third – pick those candidates as their first choice.
Divided electorate remains divided, in other words
More Democratic voters believe Congress should begin impeachment hearings on President Donald Trump’s conduct while in office, but the country at large remains divided on the matter, according to a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Overall, 27 percent of Americans say there’s enough evidence to begin impeachment hearings now — up 10 points from last month. Another 24 percent think Congress should continue investigating to see if there’s enough evidence to hold impeachment hearings in the future, which is down eight points.
And 48 percent believe that Congress should not hold impeachment hearings and that Trump should finish out his term as president — unchanged from a month ago.
Almost all the growth in support for impeachment has come from Democrats, with 48 percent of them wanting impeachment hearings now, versus 30 percent who said this a month ago. Just 6 percent of Republicans support beginning impeachment hearings now, while a whopping 86 percent say Trump should finish his term as president. Among independents, 22 percent support impeachment hearings now; 34 percent want to continue investigating; and 44 percent oppose impeachment hearings.
Warren/Buttigieg 2020?
Former Vice President Joe Biden holds a commanding 20-point lead in the 2020 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, but his post-announcement advantage is shrinking — and he has a surprising new set of top challengers.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have emerged as the next two choices after Biden in the early voting state, according to a new Post and Courier-Change Research Poll of likely Democratic primary voters released Sunday. They supplanted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Sen. Kamala Harris, who have been trending down in recent national polls.
Sanders took a big hit over previous S.C. polls falling from second to fourth. Harris’ numbers have not changed dramatically. Instead, others have leapfrogged the race’s leading African American candidate.
And from a new NBC/WSJ national poll:
Warren’s support among Democratic primary voters has grown in the last three months, according to the NBC/WSJ poll. A combined 64 percent of them say they’re enthusiastic/comfortable about her (up from 57 percent in March), while a combined 27 percent have reservations or are very uncomfortable (down from 33 percent).
Another extraordinary day of protests in Hong Kong
Photo: People take photos from an elevated walkway as thousands of protesters dressed in black file past on the street below during a new rally against a controversial extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on Sunday. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)
How long can it last?
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have flooded into central Hong Kong again over the postponed extradition bill, calling for a full retraction of the legislation amid fears authorities could resume efforts to pass the proposed law if public anger dimmed.
The demonstrators, many clad in black and carrying white carnation flowers, took to the streets on Sunday after the chief executive, Carrie Lam, announced she had indefinitely halted efforts to pass a proposed extradition law. The legislation would have allowed residents and visitors to be sent for trial in China’s opaque Communist-controlled court system. It represented perhaps the most serious government climbdown since a security law was dropped in 2003, an important democratic moment for a city where people are free to demonstrate but not able to choose their leaders.
However, Lam refused to apologise for police violence towards protesters during Wednesday’s protest, and said her errors were only of communication, not substance, insisting the extradition bill was needed for the city’s security. Protesters, already concerned by police brutality, now fear a crackdown on activists could be on the way.
Louisa Lim on Hong Kong’s defiance:
[T]he curse of living in the eternal immediate present is that the stakes for this “last fight” could not be higher, especially since young Hong Kongers fear that if they are defeated in this battle, there will be nothing left to lose. The failure of the Umbrella movement five years ago, when Hong Kongers occupied important thoroughfares for 79 days, seeking greater democratic participation, to win any concrete gains has raised the stakes further still this time round.
“HK is not China! Not yet!” These few words hastily scrawled on to a piece of A4 paper and tacked on to the concrete strut of a walkway aptly encapsulate the political crisis roiling Hong Kong. … “Not yet” is a reference to the terms of the joint declaration governing Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997, which promised that the territory’s way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years, until 2047. When it was signed, in 1984, the year 2047 seemed impossibly far off, but the proposed extradition law brings 2047 much, much closer. …
Today, any call to public action, even the act of giving speeches to a rally, requires a greater degree of caution. The young activists involved in recent protests have switched tactics to form leaderless, anonymous collectives, hiding their identities with face masks and using messaging apps to organise. The government has begun to act against these, arresting one Telegram group administrator on suspicion of conspiracy to commit public nuisance. Many activists no longer welcome their photos being taken or doing interviews with foreign media. Within the course of a week, they are becoming as cautious as mainland Chinese dissidents. By shutting young people out of the political process, the government may well have created an underground resistance that sees that radical action can have results.
But the core values that Hong Kongers cherish include universal values, press freedom, judicial independence and civil rights. These are seen by Beijing as among the “seven unmentionables”, putting Hong Kongers on the frontline of the clash between western “universal” values and the Communist party’s need for total control.
inequality
The One Percent Got $21 Trillion Richer Since 1989. The Bottom 50 Got Poorer.
real estate
The Last Residents of the Hotel Bossert
Poking Putin’s power
The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said.
In interviews over the past three months, the officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s grid and other targets as a classified companion to more publicly discussed action directed at Moscow’s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 midterm elections.
Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States.
But it also carries significant risk of escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow.
The threat of a real populist with real proposals
President Donald Trump’s reelection machine is setting its sights on a new target, one it had left for dead just a few months ago: Elizabeth Warren.
With the Massachusetts senator rising in polls and driving a populist message that threatens to cut into the president’s blue-collar base, the Trump campaign is training its firepower on Warren with an eye toward blunting her momentum.
Trump aides and their allies at the Republican National Committee, who initially believed their money and manpower were better focused elsewhere, are digging up opposition research, deploying camera-wielding trackers, and preparing to brand Warren as a liberal extremist. The reassessment of Warren, confirmed in conversations with more than a half-dozen Trump advisers, reflects the volatility of the massive Democratic primary and how the reelection campaign is reacting to it.
The Trump team — including the president himself — had been focused almost exclusively on Joe Biden to this point. But Warren’s rise now has them thinking she could pose a serious threat in a general election. Warren’s disciplined style, populist-infused speeches, and perceived ability to win over suburban female voters, Trump advisers concede, has raised concerns.
Campaign pollster John McLaughlin has sounded the alarm internally, stressing that Warren’s attacks on Trump threaten to undercut his support from the working-class voters who propelled him to the presidency.
Public service isn’t costing Kushner and Ivanka
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner took in as much as $135 million in revenue during their second year as aides to President Trump, generated from their vast real estate holdings, stocks and bonds, and even a book deal, according to their financial disclosures released Friday. …
The disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics show minimum revenue for the couple of $28 million last year generated from assets valued at more than $180 million.
The protests seem to have worked, for now
Backing down after days of huge street protests, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said on Saturday that she would indefinitely suspend a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China.
It was a remarkable reversal for Mrs. Lam, the leader installed by Beijing in 2017, who had vowed to ensure the bill’s approval and tried to get it passed on an unusually short timetable, even as hundreds of thousands demonstrated against it this past week.
But she made it clear that the bill was being delayed, not withdrawn outright, as protesters have demanded.
world view
Trump’s Iran Accusations Put U.S. Credibility on the Line
Infamous copyright troll gets sentenced to 14 years
A federal judge in Minneapolis has sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison for an elaborate fraud scheme that involved uploading pornographic videos to file-sharing networks and then threatening to sue people who downloaded them.
“It is almost incalculable how much your abuse of trust has harmed the administration of justice,” said Judge Joan Ericksen at a Friday sentencing hearing.
OLC says Trump doesn’t have to hand over his tax returns
JUST IN: Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel has posted an opinion backing Treasury’s decision not to turn over Trump tax returns to Congress. https://t.co/NgcWl8KFty pic.twitter.com/ri24VaSOpN
—@mattzap
reporter, Washington Post
Trump wants an “attack dog” to be his next press secretary
Multiple sources in the president’s orbit told Yahoo News that Trump’s vision for Sanders’s replacement doesn’t involve returning to traditional White House press briefings. Instead, the sources said the president is looking for an aggressive defender to make regular television appearances. He also seems settled on having a woman fill the role: The list of top contenders to take the position is filled with five women who have on-air experience.
“This is about how you can take control of the news cycle and represent the president. … What Trump ultimately wants as the press secretary is someone who’s going to be a loyalist and an attack dog to go out there and defend him,” one source close to the president said.
Amazon is making a bid to become an essential part of America’s infrastructure
Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the non-profit advocacy group Institute for Local Self Reliance, added, “This is essentially a company that’s set out to be and own the infrastructure for 21st century commerce and the shipping is another piece of that.” She cited Amazon’s current relationships with manufacturers and retailers enable it to have leverage in compelling the same businesses to use its shipping services.
More great climate news
Ice is melting in unprecedented ways as summer approaches in the Arctic. In recent days, observations have revealed a record-challenging melt event over the Greenland ice sheet, while the extent of ice over the Arctic Ocean has never been this low in mid-June during the age of weather satellites.
Greenland saw temperatures soar up to 40 degrees above normal Wednesday, while open water exists in places north of Alaska where it seldom, if ever, has in recent times.
It’s “another series of extreme events consistent with the long-term trend of a warming, changing Arctic,” said Zachary Labe, a climate researcher at the University of California at Irvine.
sarah huckabee sanders
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Governor of Arkansas? It’s Possible.
black lives matter
NYPD Union Lawyers Claim Eric Garner Would’ve Died Anyway Because He Was Obese
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s claim that the Harriet Tubman $20 can’t be completed for at least six years seems highly dubious
In fact, work on the new $20 note began before Mr. Trump took office, and the basic design already on paper most likely could have satisfied the goal of unveiling a note bearing Tubman’s likeness on next year’s centennial of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. An image of a new $20 bill, produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and obtained by The New York Times from a former Treasury Department official, depicts Tubman in a dark coat with a wide collar and a white scarf.
That preliminary design was completed in late 2016.
A spokeswoman for the bureau, Lydia Washington, confirmed that preliminary designs of the new note were created as part of research that was done after Jacob J. Lew, President Barack Obama’s final Treasury secretary, proposed the idea of a Tubman bill.
The development of the note did not stop there. A current employee of the bureau, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, personally viewed a metal engraving plate and a digital image of a Tubman $20 bill while it was being reviewed by engravers and Secret Service officials as recently as May 2018. This person said that the design appeared to be far along in the process.
Team Trump has lost confidence in its “all chaos, no copyeditors” strategy
President Trump’s path to a second term starts not in Florida, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, but in the pages of a corporate-style branding book developed inside a spacious and well-equipped campaign office.
The document, “Branding Guidelines for the Trump Presidential Campaign,” covers design minutiae such as font size, spacing and authorized colors—“Trump Red” and “Trump Blue” for logos, and “Trump Gold” for special occasions. It specifies which images of Mr. Trump to use to convey compassion, which to show strength and, in the case of a photo of the president pointing into the camera, when to let donors know they need to boost contributions.
Four years ago, Mr. Trump launched a first presidential bid that flouted presidential electioneering norms. His re-election campaign is looking a lot more conventional. It revolves around corporate tactics such as branding and merchandising, a direct-marketing push that relies on collecting supporters’ cellphone numbers and a data-mining operation involving a yet-to-be-released smartphone app.
endorsements
Dershowitz ‘Could’ Vote Biden, Would Like to Be Socially Acceptable Again
People are fired up about the Democratic debate lineup
Really looking forward to Bennet & Hickenlooper really getting into exactly which variety of Colorado center-left politics is the way forward for Democrats.
—@mattyglesias
Vox's Matthew Yglesias
vision 2020
4 of the 5 Top-Polling Democrats Land on Same Primary-Debate Night
bernie sanders
Why Does Bernie Sanders Cling to ‘Socialism’?
This seems good for Elizabeth Warren, who is alone among marquee contenders on one of the debate nights
NEWS - the Democratic debate groups
PURPLE: bernie, harris, biden, buttigieg, bennet, williamson, swalwell gillibrand, yang, hickenlooper
ORANGE: booker, warren, beto, klobuchar, delaney, tulsi, castro, ryan, de blasio, Inslee
NBC will now decide which night goes first
—@reidepstein
PURPLE: bernie, harris, biden, buttigieg, bennet, williamson, swalwell gillibrand, yang, hickenlooper
ORANGE: booker, warren, beto, klobuchar, delaney, tulsi, castro, ryan, de blasio, Inslee
NBC will now decide which night goes first
just asking questions
Governor Steve Bullock on Being Excluded From the Democrats’ First Debate
the national interest
Trump: Witness to My Crime Can’t Testify, But Trust Me He’s Lying
interesting times
Andrew Sullivan: Donald Trump and the Art of the Lie
vision 2020
Qualifiers for the First 2020 Democratic Primary Debates Announced
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