Politics & Public Opinion

The New McCarthyism

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Walter Olson blogged:

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) took a quote in which Brett Kavanaugh summarized the positions taken by litigants in a lawsuit, snipped off his “But they said” language introducing the summary, and represented the remainder as Kavanaugh’s own position. News organizations like CNN, along with many persons in my timeline, ran with her version as a story.

I’ve been warning about Sen. Harris since back when she was California Attorney General and kept ignoring the ethical rules in high-profile cases. Among those cases: the Moonlight Fire litigation (judge, ordering state to pay $32 million to its opponent, said he could recall “no instance in experience over 47 years as an advocate and a judge, in which the conduct of the Attorney General so thoroughly departed from the high standard it represents”) and the Backpage prosecution (courts reject her theory of criminal liability over online sex ads, she orders execs raided and arrested anyway).

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McCain’s Passing

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Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T. Angelo issued the following statement:

Log Cabin Republicans had a long and positive history with Senator McCain. The support of Log Cabin Republicans members in his 2000 bid for President of the United States that was derided by then-candidate George W. Bush became a badge of honor for our organization. Our PAC was proud to endorse him in his 2008 bid for that same office, as we were for his most recent reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2016. His support for ENDA in 2013 opposing employment discrimination against the LGBT community will go down in history as a legacy vote proving his evolution in support of LGBT Americans followed in the historic footsteps of Barry Goldwater, the United States Senator whose seat he inherited. Tonight Log Cabin Republicans join in mourning with Senator McCain’s family, and stand in solidarity with a man who will go down in history as a maverick and American patriot.

But a great many liberal political and media voices, praising McCain for his feud with Donald Trump, we’re saying something quite different about him when he ran for president against Obama.

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GOP Pride

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Counter narrative:

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Self-Inflicted Wounds

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Progressives running the political organizing group Wellstone Action directed their energies toward “work with communities of color and the LGBTQI community.” When the late Sen. Paul Wellstone’s sons raised the issue of focusing as well on economic issues and the plight of working class voters, they were ousted from the group.

Related: Democratic pollster Charles Cook recently wrote, “It’s not clear that Democrats fully understood why they lost the last presidential election and why their congressional gains were so paltry….” He added, “I met last week with leaders and members of a manufacturing union that was still livid over the Obama administration’s ‘war on coal’ that they believe put many of their members out of work or cut their hours,” and concludes, “A bit of self-reflection rather than just scapegoating might be in order.”

More. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. is “done trying to understand Trump supporters”:

Besides which, is there really so much left to “understand?” Not from where I sit. Long before Trump even existed as a political force, many of us noted with alarm the rise of a backlash among right wingers deeply angry and profoundly terrified by the writing on the demographic wall. Said writing foretold — and for that matter, still foretells — the declining preeminence of white, Christian America.

A basket of deplorables, clinging to their guns and religion.

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Grenell Confirmed

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The president’s moves to ban transgender service members from the military, even those who have fully transitioned, may preclude him from being seen as transformative on LGBT issues within the GOP, but the party is still changing. Even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ardent social conservative, praised the appointment as ambassador to Germany an openly gay man who supported the fight for marriage equality. Grenell wrote in the Wall Street Journal in May 2012, “I can be proud of President Obama’s personal support for gay marriage and still take exception to his dismal national-security and economic records.”

More. Via The Hill:

The fight over Richard Grenell isn’t the cause of the clearly changing sentiment within the GOP; it’s more of the fulcrum than the spark. There have long been Log Cabin Republicans, now dutifully championing the fact that one of their own will likely be the highest-ranking gay official in U.S. history. Yet now, there seems to be a larger presence of openly gay Republicans than ever before; and consistent with polling data, no one in the party really seems to mind.

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Gays and Guns

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More. Powerline Blog: Children’s Crusade? No, It’s Worse

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Modern Politics

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Actually, former NYC City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s full comment is not objectionable, as she notes that TV actress Cynthia Nixon had supported Quinn’s Democrat primary opponent and the eventual winner, Bill de Blasio, over Quinn in the 2013 mayoral race:

Cynthia Nixon was opposed to having a qualified lesbian become mayor of New York City. Now she wants an unqualified lesbian to be the governor of New York. You have to be qualified and have experience. She isn’t qualified to be the governor.

Nixon’s beliefs include giving the teachers’ unions everything they demand, and then some. And while she’s fervently pro-choice on abortion, she’s fiercely against school choice:

“[Cuomo] also wants to increase the number of privately-run charter schools in New York City by more than 50 percent,” Nixon wrote. “And he has been a loud proponent of private school tax credits, essentially a backdoor voucher system.”

I’m no fan of Cuomo, but putting students before educrats sounds good to me.

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