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Byrd baths and other things

  It’s Byrd bath time for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” In reality, the GOP is really hoping that the Senate Parliamentarian throws them a lifeline and makes the more controversial provisions not eligible to be passed under reconciliation. I believe that the Senate GOP has the votes to pass whatever version of the bill emerges from the process. Majority Leader Thune would have to lose four votes for it to fail. I don’t see that happening. The real test, and in reality, this has always been the case, will be can it pass the House again? It’s back in the House that it faces its most perilous moment. In the House, two very different factions could sink the bill. You have the House Freedom Caucus; these are the most unrealistic conservatives. It took a lot of whipping to get these members on board to pass the legislation the first time around. And now that a much more trimmed-down version of the bill will be coming back, it’s questionable if Speaker Johnson can get to 218. In the end, ...
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Earthquake in the big apple

    Zohran Mamdani winning is a political earthquake. It will have profound consequences for the Democratic Party going forward. Democratic primary voters have said very loudly that they want change and they want it now. I expect a lot of older Democrats will see the writing on the wall in a few weeks and announce retirement rather than go down in a primary. Looking especially at California 11, California 43 and New York 12.     In 2008, Senator Barack Obama had a message that resonated with younger voters, who, along with African American voters, formed an unbeatable coalition. He also connected with voters in a very real way. He was the right candidate at the right place at the right time. In 2018, AOC determined that Rep. Joe Crowley was not focusing on his job of representing his constituents. Her message was very focused and consistent. Zohran Mamdani ran a campaign focused on affordability in a city that is increasingly becoming unaffordable for the workin...
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A way forward

  The strategy   The Democratic Party is at a crossroads. The 2024 elections exposed deep problems within the Democratic Party and left the party in search of a new mission and purpose as we go forward into the future. I am going to offer what I believe is a winning message and path forward for the party and the country. I firmly believe that the Democratic Party has a positive agenda and offers policies that will benefit more Americans than the Republican Party. Unfortunately, Democrats seem adrift on how to best articulate that message. I am here to help. I live in a place that Donald Trump won by 72%. Trump didn’t receive 72% of the vote here; that was the difference between Trump and Harris. So I know a thing or two about what is happening out here in MAGAville.      The first thing Democrats should do is focus on how Republican budget cuts hurt veterans. DODE cuts have impacted the Department of Veterans Affairs; those cuts include doctors and nurses w...
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The breakup

  I think one positive thing about the Trump Federalist Society break-up is that Trump will nominate some really incompetent nominees for the federal bench. It will be too much for some Senators, and the nominations will languish in committee. It takes a special breed of incompetence for a judicial nominee to fail in the Senate controlled by the President’s own party. However, we are about to see that occur with regularity. We are seeing the first instance of this in the nomination of Emil Bove to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Bove previously served as an attorney on the legal team in the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, serving as second chair for the defendant . It should be noted that Donald Trump might lack a lot of vacancies to fill on the federal bench due to the sheer number of jurists Joe Biden and he has filled during their four-year terms.
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Trumpism at ten

  Trump and his band of thugs hate everything about the American experiment. It’s also a perfect example of those who view America as a place rather than an idea. It’s truly a wicked and perverse ideology that has infected our politics over the past decade. I will have more to post in the coming days as I flush my thoughts out better. It’s hard to believe that in less than a month, the tenth anniversary of one of the most consequential days in American political history occurred. 
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My 2024 reading list

 From time to time, I will share my reading list with everyone. Here is the 2024 edition of my reading list. I hope that some of you take recommendations from this list and find a great read. My five top recommendations are The Barn, The Quiet Damage, The Fall of Roe, Race Against Time, and Coming Out Republican.  2024 Book List  1.) Swamp Monsters  2.) The glory and the dream 3.)Delaying the Dream  4.) Lincoln’s Melancholy  5.)JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century 1917-1956 6.) Gun Country  7.) Nixon Californias Native Son 8.) On this day in Politics  9.) Trials of Harry S. Truman 10.) 1932 11.) Our ancient faith  12.) Hitler’s American Friends  13.) The Presidents 14.) Life After Power  15.) Tyranny of the Minority  16.) What the Heck are you up to Mr. President 17.) The American Dream: A cultural history 18.) Why White Liberals Fail 19.) This America 20.) Why Congress? 21.) April 4, 1968 22.) The Achilles Trap 23.) Burn...
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Weekly reading list

Hello everyone, from time to time I will share my weekly reading list of news stories that I find interesting or infuriating. I will admit most of the stories this week are the ones that will make you extremely angry if you are like me, a liberal, or are a decent person and have compassion. It includes three stories in which the cruelty is the point, several about the party of “smaller government” taking away freedoms, two stories about out-in-the-open corruption from the “most transparent” White House in history, and of course, will talk about the hell that likely awaits Alabama voters in 2026.  Whenever you see a story about right-wing cruelty, understand the cruelty is the point.  https://www.mississippifreepress.org/ice-arrests-mississippi-father-at-his-citizenship-hearing-threatening-deportation/ https://abcnews.go.com/US/georgia-teen-detained-ice-after-mistaken-arrest-detention/story?id=122113802 https://apnews.com/article/harvard-trump-foreign-student-457d07268fba9c1f6f...
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