Daily Archives: January 18, 2020

Rep. Ted LieuTed W. LieuDemocratic lawmaker dismisses GOP lawsuit threat: 'Take your letter and shove it' Democratic lawmaker says Nunes threatened to sue him over criticism Paralysis of nations is empowering cities MORE (D-Calif.) on Friday dismissed what he said was the threat of a lawsuit from fellow Rep. Devin NunesDevin Gerald NunesDemocratic lawmaker dismisses GOP lawsuit threat: 'Take your letter and shove it' House Democrats release second batch of Parnas materials Democratic lawmaker says Nunes threatened to sue him over criticism MORE (R-Calif.), telling a lawyer for Nunes to shove it.

The Democrat shared on Twitter the first page of a letter sent by Nuness counsel and dated Dec. 31 in which the lawyer cited the right to maintainan "unimpaired reputation." The letter was mentioned by Lieuon Twitter earlier this week.

Lieu hinted in his response that the threat centered on his comments tyingNunes to Lev Parnas, a Soviet-born businessman and former associate of President TrumpDonald John TrumpNational Archives says it altered Trump signs, other messages in Women's March photo Dems plan marathon prep for Senate trial, wary of Trump trying to 'game' the process Democratic lawmaker dismisses GOP lawsuit threat: 'Take your letter and shove it' MORE's personal attorney RudyGiulianiwho is at the heart of the impeachment proceedings.

I received your letter dated December 31, 2019 in which you state your client Congressman Devin Nunes will sue me if I dont, among other actions, issue a public apology to Devin Nunes,Lieu wrote in his own letter dated Thursday. It is true that I stated Congressman Nunes worked with Lev Parnas and conspired to undermine our own government.

I welcome any lawsuit from your client and look forward to taking discovery of Congressman Nunes. Or, you can take your letter and shove it.

Attached is the first page of a five page letter in which the lawyer for @DevinNunes threatens that Rep Nunes will sue me.

Attached is my response. pic.twitter.com/bWAqdRhq97

Lieupointed torecent evidence released by the House in its impeachment investigation and Parnas's MSNBC interview earlier this week, noting Parnas and Nunes communicated amid efforts by Trump allies to convince Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

Neither Lieu nor Nunes immediately responded to requests for comment from The Hill on Friday evening.

Nunes has emerged as one of Trumps top alliesin the House from his perchas the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, maintaining that the president acted appropriately in his dealings with Ukraine despite testimony from several current and former officials that they were alarmed bythe president's efforts topush Kyiv to conduct investigationsdesired by Trump.

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Democratic lawmaker dismisses GOP lawsuit threat: 'Take your letter and shove it' | TheHill - The Hill

Voting tells politicians, and the press if theyre capable of getting the message, what citizens will tolerate and what they wont. The Democrats havent voted yet, but the candidates have been campaigning for more than a year and just had their last debate before the Iowa caucuses.

Thats time enough to learn some useful things. The first is that voters Democratic voters have a limited appetite for free stuff. Many candidates have been promising free college and free health care and offering free Ben & Jerrys ice cream.

Sounds good at first, as when Sen. Elizabeth Warren backed Sen. Bernie Sanders Medicare for All proposal. But the refusal of the I-have-a-plan-for-that candidate to say how shed pay for it didnt fly. And when she did answer that question, that flopped, too, and she fell back on saying it would be delayed till her second two years or second term.

The second thing weve learned is related: As blogger Glenn Reynolds puts it, Go woke, go broke.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Rep. Beto ORourke, Sen. Kamala Harris, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and Sen. Cory Booker all candidates who have taken some moderate stands chose to emphasize how hip they were. They embraced positions like free medical care for illegal immigrants, reparations for descendants of slaves, abortions for men who have transitioned to be women.

These things sound reasonable to fans of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. To Democratic primary voters, not so much. All five are now ex-candidates.

Third, identity politics has proved to be a loser, too. Harris and Booker got only single-digit percentages from black voters. Castro made zero progress with Hispanics. Things were quite different in 1988, when Jesse Jackson carried blacks, Michael Dukakis white ethnics, Al Gore Southern whites and Dick Gephardt union members.

Identity politics is big on campus, where you get denounced for wearing a serape on Halloween if you dont have Mexican ancestors. But voters dont care so much.

Harris and Booker failed to duplicate the frisson inspired by Barack Obama in 2008, probably because you can only elect the first black president once.

Fourth, the white college graduates gentry liberals who are, for the first time in history, one of the Democratic Partys largest constituencies, are a fickle bunch.

Black and elderly Democrats have consistently given former Vice President Joe Biden large pluralities, and Hispanic and low-income non-college Democrats have shown some affinity for Sanders. That largely accounts for the buoyancy of support for these 77- and 78-year-old candidates.

But gentry liberals have been bouncing around. They were briefly smitten with Harris after she bopped Biden on school busing. They swooned longer for Warren when she kept repeating, I have a plan for that, and then they were charmed by Mayor Pete Buttigiegs crisp and self-assured articulateness.

The gentry liberals fling with Harris didnt last long, and current polling suggests their crushes on Warren and Buttigieg are over. But theres still plenty of room for these voters to swing decisively in Februarys first two contests, for they are numerous among those who bother to attend the Iowa caucuses and demographically a large share of the population of New Hampshire.

Thats what happened in 2008, when high-education Iowans swung to Obama, which convinced black voters that he, unlike Jesse Jackson, could win whites votes and the nomination. But gentry liberals are hard to gauge because what theyre after is not government aid but morally satisfying reassurances.

Finally, Democrats or their many friends in the press and social media have an obsessive yearning for diversity, which turns out to mean racial quotas and preferences. There is moaning about not having any people of color on the latest debate stage, as if the party had a responsibility to somehow field a group of candidates who are demographically identical to the population.

Actually, the six candidates at the last debate come from a wide range of American backgrounds, reasonably appropriate for a party that, in its 188-year history, has always been a coalition of out-groups.

Whats important is not what the field of candidates looks like but who will be the partys nominee, who will inevitably be of one gender and a limited number of ancestries. That is something Democratic voters have not taught us yet.

Continued here:

Woke doesnt win and other big surprises of Democrats 2020 race so far - New York Post

But some of the Latino political organizers I spoke with described the primary season so far as a master class in political malpracticeas one person phrased itwith candidates struggling to engage Latino voters, address issues beyond immigration reform, and treat Latinos as the influential voting bloc they are. Others reported a lack of candidate interest in working with their organizations, including missed meetings and radio silence on questionnaires. (On top of all that, the only Latino candidate in the race, Julin Castro, dropped out earlier this month, leaving an all-white stage for tonights debate.) Theres a real risk that if Democrats dont sort out these issues soon, they could struggle to attract and mobilize what could be the largest minority voting bloc in 2020.

It feels like every four years theres this clutching of the pearls and head-scratching about why the hell Latinos dont vote, Marisa Franco, a co-founder of the Latino activist network Mijente, told me. I dont think its an absence of interest. Its a hunger for options.

Read: The next populist revolution will be Latino

The only candidate still in the race to receive virtually universal praise from the organizers was Senator Bernie Sanders. Organizers from California to Texas highlighted the Sanders campaigns grassroots engagement, something that seems to be reflected in Latinos consistently strong support for the senator: In poll after poll, Latinos, especially young Latinos, rank Sanders as their top pick among the primary contenders. Chuck Rocha, a top Sanders adviser, told me that the polls reflect the senators priority of expanding the electorate, including young Latinos who have not voted before. Of the record 32 million Latinos eligible to cast a ballot in 2020, 4 million of them turned 18 after the 2016 election, Mara Teresa Kumar, the CEO of the political-advocacy group Voto Latino, told me.

Rocha and Sanderss national political director, Analilia Mejia, said the campaign has aired Spanish-language ads for the past eight months and hired more than 150 Latino staffers around the country. In vote-rich California specifically, the campaign opened most of its 14 field offices in heavily Latino communities, including East Los Angeles, Oxnard, San Jose, and the Central Valley region. On our campaign, were very clear about the rising Latino iceberg of voters, how for years to come there will be a need to deeply motivate and mobilize Latino voters, Mejia said. When you have people who belong to that community [and] you empower those folks, of course youre going to do better within that communityif you have folks who know how to navigate it, folks who come from it, folks who respect it.

Sanders aside, the organizers I spoke with said the first signs of trouble in the 2020 campaign were clear during the two nights of the first Democratic debate, in June.

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Democrats Should Be Worried About the Latino Vote - The Atlantic

SALEM Tensions simmered over Oregon Democrats priority climate change bill on Friday, as leaders from both parties met with reporters in the Capitol to discuss their priorities for the upcoming 35-day legislative session.

The main undercurrent dividing the parties: Will Republicans walk out, stalling all business in the affected chamber? And who would pay the political price if they did?

With just two weeks to go until lawmakers return to Salem, top Democrats spoke scornfully of the idea that Republicans in either chamber might reprise the Senate GOPs 2019 walkout to block similar carbon legislation.

Its their job to be here, Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, said. Theyre being paid by the taxpayers to be here I would not want to show my face (to constituents) if I did not show up for work.

House Republican Leader Rep. Christine Drazan of Canby, the only GOP member at the press briefing, addressed the idea that Republicans would be shirking their duties if they boycott the Capitol.

We are advocates for our communities, and we are equal advocates for our communities, Drazan said. I dont work for (House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat) and nobody works for me. These folks are independently elected in their communities.

Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. of Grants Pass, who led the Oregon GOPs headline-grabbing walkouts last year, said in a press conference earlier this week that he was not ruling out a similar boycott this February.

Baertschiger also called for Democrats to allow their climate change plan to be referred to voters, an idea Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Kate Brown rejected on Friday. He skipped the Friday press briefing, reportedly because of the bad road conditions and deep snow in his district.

The legislative preview briefing was organized by the Associated Press. Senate President Peter Courtney, a Salem Democrat, was also absent on Friday. He was hospitalized recently after injuring his hip during a cycling workout, but is expected to return to the Capitol for the short session.

On Friday, Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, initially spoke reservedly when asked about working with Republicans.

I think they need to show up and be in the building and work to improve that concept, Brown said. And if that doesnt work, obviously, (they can) vote against it. I dont think walking out is a productive method.

Brown issued an appeal for Republicans to stick out the session in order to pass bipartisan priorities, such as earthquake and wildfire preparedness projects that she said could help rural areas. When asked by an Associated Press reporter if its an impediment that Baertschiger has stated he does not believe humans caused climate change, Brown said no.

Certainly, he has to spout a particular philosophy, Brown said. I may disagree with that particular philosophy. But lets figure out how we can set aside our differences and get as much as we can done for Oregonians.

Our kids are telling us we cant wait, Brown said. We have to move forward on a bill that caps carbon emissions and tackles climate change.

The governor said it was too early for Democrats to consider asking voters to lower the two-thirds quorum requirement in the state Constitution, which allowed minority Republicans to shut down the Senate twice last year. Senate Democrats have drafted a proposal to do so, Burdick said.

Lets get through this session, Brown said.

Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud

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Oregon Democrats, Republican bristle over possibility of another GOP shutdown - OregonLive