Not literally, of course. But Connecticut’s Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, whose misstatements/embellishments/lies about serving in Vietnam have already cost him dearly in the polls, probably didn’t need a self-described “good friend” like former Republican congressman Christopher Shays to blab about his concerns to the Times. “I felt inclined to go to him and say, ‘Dick, in your service in Vietnam, you weren’t on the firing line, you don’t want to overstate that,’” Shays tells the paper that broke the story. Thanks, pal!
THE FEED
Now the trade war is personal
The pressure cooker that flew off shelves last Black Friday is getting pulled into the trade war.
The price of the popular Instant Pot would increase nearly $38 to $187.44 if the latest proposed 25% tariff on Chinese imports goes into effect, parent company Corelle Brands LLC said in a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative.
The company said the higher prices were “an unfair consequence” of the trade tensions because targeting electric multi-cookers “will in no way assist the USTR in its policy goals against China.”
Labrie’s case became a national story in 2015
The prep school student who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate was released from jail for good behavior.
Owen Labrie’s attorney confirmed to ABC News that he was released from Merrimack County’s jail Monday morning after nearly six months. He was serving the remaining 10 months of his sentence, The Associated Press reported.
Labrie, who is now 23 years old, was a student at the prestigious St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire when he was accused of sexually assaulting a younger student.
The case raised questions about sex culture on campus in light of accusations that the alleged incident was part of a so-called “Senior Salute,” where seniors allegedly target younger students.
SCOTUS sides with FUCT
NEW: in the case involving FUCT, a clothing brand, SCOTUS rules that a federal ban on immoral & scandalous trademarks is unconstitutional. It’s a Kagan 9-0 with partial dissents from Roberts, Sotomayor and Breyer. https://t.co/t32jVFUdyb
—@stevenmazie
How much would you pay in Beto O’Rourke’s proposed “war tax”?
What would @BetoORourke’s “war tax” be?
For households making less than…
- $30,000 — $25
- $40,000 — $57
- $50,000 — $98
- $75,000 — $164
- $100,000 — $270
- $200,000 — $485
- More than $200,000 — $1,000
It’d go into trust funds for vets created at the start of each new war. https://t.co/Kkt8KFEh2V
—@ericbradner
For households making less than…
- $30,000 — $25
- $40,000 — $57
- $50,000 — $98
- $75,000 — $164
- $100,000 — $270
- $200,000 — $485
- More than $200,000 — $1,000
It’d go into trust funds for vets created at the start of each new war. https://t.co/Kkt8KFEh2V
Poll: Most people aren’t paying attention
Only 22% of Democrats registered to vote say they know a lot about the candidates’ positions, while 62% say they know a little. And only 35% say they’re paying close attention to the campaign, with almost two-thirds saying they’re paying some or no attention.
It was a rough weekend for Mayor Pete
As he soared from obscurity to top-tier presidential candidate this year, Mayor Pete Buttigieg rooted his unlikely campaign in an argument he hoped would fit both the moment and his relatively thin resume: that what a nation fed up with big government truly needs is to “get Washington to look more like our best-run cities and towns.”
Now that South Bend is in the throes of a crisis over race, policing and city leadership, that rationale is running headlong into the inconvenient reality that when things go sour, mayors can be held immediately and directly responsible in a way that senators and congressman are not.
The recent unrest in South Bend — triggered by the fatal shooting of Eric Logan, a black man, by a white police officer a week ago — has become the most profound hurdle for Buttigieg’s candidacy to date. It has also tested his readiness to confront an issue that seems to call for a visceral, emotional response, rather than the cerebral, levelheaded comportment that has made the 37-year-old mayor seem so unflappable on the campaign trail.
One of these blockbusters, or both, could finally come down this morning
The Supreme Court is set to decide both partisan gerrymandering and census cases this week. Stay tuned…
—@marceelias
Biden wants to make it clear that he’s focused on Trump, not fighting with his Democratic primary rivals
Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized President Trump’s “racist invective” and called for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and a new foreign policy direction in Latin America and the Caribbean as part of his presidential campaign’s first glimpse of his immigration policy.
Biden’s announcement, which appeared Monday in a Miami Herald op-ed, was as much a broad outline of his immigration and foreign policy ideas as it was a critique of Trump administration policies.
“Under Trump, there have been horrifying scenes at the border of kids being kept in cages, tear gassing asylum seekers, ripping children from their mothers’ arms — actions that subvert our American values and erode our ability to lead on the global stage,” according to Biden’s op-ed, which ran in the Miami Herald’s Spanish-language publication, El Nuevo Herald, as well.
“At a time when the challenges we face demand a united, regional response, Trump repeatedly invokes racist invective to describe anyone south of the Rio Grande, including calling migrants ‘animals’,” Biden wrote.
There was no U.S. strike on Iran over the weekend but tensions haven’t cooled
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Saudi Arabia on Monday in a hastily arranged visit amid mounting tensions between Washington and Tehran as Iran’s navy chief warned Iranian forces wouldn’t hesitate to shoot down more U.S. surveillance drones from their skies.
The downing of the drone, valued at more than $100 million, saw the United States pull back from the brink of a military strike on Iran after President Donald Trump last week called off strikes in retaliation.
Iran’s naval commander, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, threatened Washington, saying that Tehran is capable of shooting down other American spy drones that violate Iranian airspace.
“We confidently say that the crushing response can always be repeated, and the enemy knows it,” Khanzadi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim news agency during a meeting with a group of defense officials.
encounter
Marianne Williamson Makes a Case for a Recovery Presidency
feature
How Cindy Yang Learned to Throw a Party at Mar-a-Lago
politics
Even the Trump Transition Team Knew Some Appointees Were Bad Hires: Report
A major policy step on the week of the first debates
NEW: @BernieSanders will on Monday propose canceling the *entire* $1.6 trillion in U.S. student loan debt, escalating Democratic policy battle
Key coauthors: @IlhanMN and @RepJayapal
Paid for by Wall Street transaction tax, paired w/ free college billhttps://t.co/LUyARIN7Ec
—@JStein_WaPo
Key coauthors: @IlhanMN and @RepJayapal
Paid for by Wall Street transaction tax, paired w/ free college billhttps://t.co/LUyARIN7Ec
migrant crisis
Everything We Know About the Inhumane Conditions at Migrant Detention Camps
Even the Trump transition team knew his staffing choices were trouble
Nearly 100 internal Trump transition vetting documents leaked to “Axios on HBO” identify a host of “red flags” about officials who went on to get some of the most powerful jobs in the U.S. government.
Scott Pruitt, who ultimately lost his job as EPA Administrator because of serial ethical abuses and clubbiness with lobbyists, had a section in his vetting form titled “allegations of coziness with big energy companies.”
Mick Mulvaney, who became Trump’s Budget Director and is now his acting chief of staff, has a striking assortment of “red flags,” including his assessment that Trump “is not a very good person.”
The Trump transition team was so worried about Rudy Giuliani, in line for Secretary of State, that they created a separate 25-page document titled “Rudy Giuliani Business Ties Research Dossier” with copious accounting of his “foreign entanglements.”
politics
Democratic Presidential Candidates Respond to New Rape Allegation Against Trump
roundups
How Readers, Pundits, and Trump Have Responded to E. Jean Carroll’s Allegations
the economy
America’s Top Economists Needlessly Undermined Growth, Study Confirms
More horrifying claims about the care of migrant children in U.S. custody
Four toddlers were so severely ill and neglected at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, that lawyers forced the government to hospitalize them last week.
The children, all under age 3 with teenage mothers or guardians, were feverish, coughing, vomiting and had diarrhea, immigration attorneys told HuffPost on Friday. Some of the toddlers and infants were refusing to eat or drink. One 2-year-old’s eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was “completely unresponsive” and limp, according to Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney.
She described seeing terror in the children’s eyes.
“It’s just a cold, fearful look that you should never see in a child of that age,” Gialluca said. “You look at them and you think, ‘What have you seen?’”
vision 2020
Why Did Obama Pick Biden As His Veep in the First Place?
early and often
‘That’s Hell’: Democrats’ Debate Prep Gets Real
supreme court
Another SCOTUS Precedent Falls. Could Roe Be Next?
the national interest
Manafort Promised Sean Hannity He Wouldn’t Flip on Trump
Conservative Wisconsin judges say “sure” to blatant Republican power grab
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday upheld a last-ditch Republican move late last year to curb the powers of incoming Democratic Governor Tony Evers, ruling that passing such measures in lame-duck sessions is constitutionally permissible.
The 4-3 decision overturned a lower court ruling in March that had blocked the legislation, criticized by Democrats as a power-grab. Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niesshad found that the state legislature’s use of an “extraordinary session” was unlawful.
“We hold that the extraordinary sessions do not violate the Wisconsin constitution because the text of our constitution directs the legislature to meet at times as ‘provided by law,’” Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote for the majority.
Trump denies veracity of New York’s cover story – which features a photo of him and E. Jean Carroll
NEW: President Trump responds to sexual assault allegations by E. Jean Carroll, saying `I’ve never met this person in my life’ pic.twitter.com/qAyFStIYzq
—@LauraLitvan
Earlier today, the Supreme Court tossed a death sentence that had drawn national attention thanks to the “In the Dark” podcast
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the death sentence of a Mississippi man convicted at his sixth trial for the same murders after the prosecutor repeatedly excluded black people from the jury.
The justices, voting 7-2, said the prosecutor violated the constitutional rights of Curtis Flowers, a black man accused of killing four people in 1996. Prosecutors will now have to decide whether to try him for a seventh time.
Three of Flowers’s six trials ended in convictions that were thrown out on appeal, once because the prosecutor, District Attorney Doug Evans, excluded blacks from the jury. Two other prosecutions ended with mistrials.
the top line
Here’s Who Trump Should Have Made Fed Chairman
virginia
Fairfax Says Rape Allegations Have Raised His Profile, Eyes Gubernatorial Bid
We’ve all been there
UPDATE: Felix Sater tells @politico he was sick this morning and slept through his alarm, causing him to miss his appearance before the House Intelligence Committee.
(Yes, really.)
w/ @NatashaBertrand https://t.co/pflqdUMBlt
—@desiderioDC
(Yes, really.)
w/ @NatashaBertrand https://t.co/pflqdUMBlt
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