Monthly Archives: March 2021

Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren weighed in Monday on the scandals surrounding New York's "narcissistic tyrant",Gov. Andrew Cuomo, after a seventh accuser came forward with claims of sexual misconduct over the weekend.

Despite multipleinvestigations and growing calls from members of his own party to resign, Cuomo has refused to leave office, telling reporters on Friday that Democrats pressuring him to do so don't know the difference between "playing politics, bowing to cancel culture, and the truth."

"Cancel culture is not what happens to an elected official after he or she sends thousands of seniors to an early grave, covers it up, and/or allegedly sexually harasses and intimidates women. So dont get it twisted, bud," Lahren told viewers on her Fox Nation show "Final Thoughts."

The host said shewas "amazed" at Cuomo's ability to "play the victim," and wondered whether Democrats were focused on the harassment claimsas a deliberate attempt to distract from "the thousands of seniors sent to an early grave thanks to the poor decision-making of Governor Cuomo and other governors with "Ds" behind their names."

BIDEN BREAKS HIS SILENCE ON CUOMO SCANDALS

"What about the timing? The sexual allegations may have surfaced rather recently, but the nursing home debacle has been public knowledge for months and prior to the election. The Democrats shirked that off leading up to November because Cuomos deathly leadership decisions did not supersede or exceed his 'gold standard'hatred for Donald Trump."

Lahren observed that whilePresident Joe Biden addressed the scandal for the first time Sunday night, Vice President Kamala Harris -- who was a vocal supporter of Christine Blasey Ford during the 2018 Supreme Court confirmation ofBrett Kavanaugh-- has maintained her silence on the mounting allegations.

ANDREW CUOMO'S ACCUSERS: WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE CLAIMS AGAINST THE NEW YORK DEMOCRAT

"Well, Kamala, what say you?" Lahren said. "Wheres the passion, the fire, the outrage, the justice when it comes to a powerful Democrat accused by several women of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior? Really looking forward to your commentary on the matter given your likely faux outrage over similar accusations levied against conservatives in the past."

"The moral of the story here is this," concluded Lahren. "Democrats only go after their own if it can somehow distract from other Democrat wrongdoings and/or benefit their collective party in a way that exceeds their loyalty to fellow libs."

To watch Lahren's latest episode of"Final Thoughts,"and for more exclusive commentary,visit Fox Nationand join today.

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Tomi Lahren on Cuomo: 'Democrats only go after their own' to 'distract from other Democrat wrongdoings' - Fox News

President Biden signed his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill into law yesterday, a move that will send $1,400 stimulus checks to many Americans, strengthen a wide range of social programs and step up investment in vaccine distribution. A few hours later, he went on national television to trumpet the achievement. And this afternoon, he celebrated it in a Rose Garden ceremony, joined by Democratic leaders in Congress.

It changes the paradigm, Biden said today, talking about the plans provisions to support low- and middle-class workers. For the first time in a long time, this bill puts working people in this nation first.

The bill passed without any Republican votes, depriving the Biden administration of the ability to frame it as a bipartisan effort but also denying the G.O.P. the chance to reap its rewards in the realm of public opinion, if the legislation remains as popular as it is right now, according to polls.

Biden is planning to travel the country in the coming days to drive home the message to Americans that the legislation doesnt just provide needed relief to families and businesses but also that Democrats have delivered on a key campaign promise. Will it resonate? Come the 2022 midterm elections, will voters remember a law that was passed a year and a half earlier?

To understand how the policy interacts with the politics, I caught up with Jonathan Martin, a national political correspondent, to talk about how Democrats plan to marshal this legislative victory to their advantage at the ballot box next year.

Republican lawmakers in Washington were unified in their opposition to the relief package. But some, like Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, are already praising some of the programs that the bill has funded. Are any of those G.O.P. lawmakers regretting their opposition?

The popularity of the package isnt lost on congressional Republicans. Some in the party believe it will become less appealing once voters realize how little of the funding is for direct Covid relief, but most G.O.P. lawmakers seem eager to change the subject to the growing number of migrants on the southern border.

Its no accident that the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, is headed there on Monday (and not planning to hold events in opposition to the stimulus).

Biden has talked about learning lessons from 2009, when then-President Barack Obama signed a nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill but resisted taking a victory lap. Democrats ended up suffering big losses in the 2010 midterms. How is Biden seeking to avoid a similar fate?

With a lot of events! Im only half-kidding.

The White House is determined to flood the zone, as the saying goes, and dispatch all manner of figures, from the first and second families to cabinet secretaries, to promote the bill.

But the administration also hopes that the direct impact namely checks in the mail will make this measure a lot more tangible and therefore politically popular than the 2009 bill.

If Democrats were able to retain their razor-thin majorities in Congress, it would fly in the face of history which tells us that a new presidents party hardly ever comes out on top in the midterm elections. Looking at the map in 2022, how good do Democrats think their chances are of defying that history?

Right now, they are optimistic because theyre united certainly by Democratic standards! and Republicans have obvious challenges with former President Donald Trump, whos still liked by their primary base but is deeply unpopular with the broader electorate.

But Democratic leaders know how often theres a backlash to the party in power, and they also know how tight their margins are in both chambers of Congress. Even the slightest pro-Republican breeze next year will lift them to the majority.

Thestimuluspayments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more.

Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But its expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more

This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. That will be helpful to people at the lower end of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more.

There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldnt have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation for example, if youve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more.

The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Thats on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses households would have to meet severalconditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more.

In his speech last night, Biden said the vaccine rollout was truly a national effort, just like we saw during World War II. After a presidential campaign centered on calls for unity and reconciliation, does Biden see this bill which is supported by about seven in 10 Americans, according to polls as an opportunity to actually hark back to an era of American history before political polarization took hold so deeply?

Thats certainly how he campaigned, and in the first days of his administration he seemed to be interested in pursuing bipartisanship. But when Senate Republicans came to him with a counteroffer on the stimulus that was about a third of the $1.9 trillion he had in mind, he chose speed and scale over bipartisanship.

The big question, now that Congress seems to be moving to infrastructure, historically an issue that transcends party lines, is whether Biden will make a real turn toward true bipartisanship and push congressional Democrats to put together a package that includes Republicans.

New York Times Podcasts

On todays episode, Ezra spoke with Dr. Ashish Jha, a physician, leading health policy researcher and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

Dr. Jha helps guide us through these next months of the pandemic, to help us see what hes seeing. Dont get him wrong: This isnt over. But in America, things are going to feel very, very different in 45 days, for reasons he explains. Then comes another question: How do we make sure the global end to this crisis comes soon after? You can listen here.

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Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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How Democrats Hope to Press Their Advantage on the Stimulus - The New York Times

* Jake Griffin at the Daily Herald has the best story Ive yet seen about the governors corporate loophole closure proposal. Theres just too much good stuff to excerpt, so you should definitely click here and read the whole thing. However, buried deep down is this little nugget

State Rep. Fred Crespo, a Hoffman Estates Democrat, said he doubts the governor can get those changes made by the legislature.

I am always concerned when there are assumptions built into those budgets that might or might not happen, Crespo said. In closing those corporate loopholes, I think he valued that at close to $1 billion. Were not hearing thats going to happen.

Rep. Crespo chairs the House Appropriations-General Services Committee.

Adding From a House Dem involved with the budget-making process

Im not sure who Fred speaks for here. We havent even started going through each loophole yet.

The rest is here:

Your Illinois News Radar House Democrat on Pritzker loophole closures: We're not hearing that's going to happen - The Capitol Fax Blog

Democrats on Wednesday passed their $1.9 trillion spending and welfare bill that would have been unimaginable even in the Obama years, and the big news is how easily they did it. The party is united behind the most left-wing agenda in decades, while Republicans are divided and in intellectual disarray. This is only the beginning of the progressive steamroller, and its worth understanding why.

One lesson from the Covid non-fight is that there are no Democratic moderates in Congress. The party base has moved so sharply left that even swing-state Members are more liberal than many liberals in the Clinton years. Democrats lost not a single vote in the Senate and only one in the House. The fear of primary challenges from the left, which took out House war horses in 2018 and 2020, has concentrated incumbent minds.

A second lesson is that President Biden is no moderating political force. Democrats in the House and Senate are setting the agenda, and Mr. Biden is along for the ride. Hes the ideal political front-man for this agenda with his talk of unity and anti-Trump persona, but he isnt shaping legislation. He is signing on to whatever chief of staff Ron Klain tells him he needs to support.

For now at least, there also isnt much of an opposition. With a few exceptions, the media are marching in lockstep support of whatever Democrats want. The substance of the Covid bill was barely covered outside of these pages. Opposition to H.R.1, the federal takeover of state election law, is literally reported as a revival of Jim Crow racism.

The business community has also been co-opted, as it often is at the beginning of a Democratic Presidency. Industries are trying to protect their specific iron rice bowls, but one price is their accommodation with the larger progressive agenda. Small business opposes the $15 minimum wage, but bigger businesses dont mind saddling smaller competitors with higher costs. Big Oil doesnt mind selling out independent frackers on climate rules.

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Opinion: The Progressive Democratic Steamroller - The Wall Street Journal

For Democrats who care deeply about progressive causes, Donald Trumps presidency was a frightening experience. It was also a call to action. Progressive campaigns and causes experienced a huge spike in donations over the past four years, and in 2020 candidates up and down the ballot far outpaced fund-raising records from previous cycles.

So what happens now that Mr. Trump is no longer in power? In a political landscape defined by web advertising, social media campaigns and, yes, online fund-raising, many Democratic analysts and strategists are wondering whether theyll be able to stir up the same kind of financial support.

Donald Trump and his policies motivated a lot of giving to progressive organizations, Mark Mellman, a longtime Democratic pollster and strategist, said Thursday in a phone interview. Whether that will be sustained is an open question.

Seeking answers, Mr. Mellman and Chuck Pruitt, another veteran Democratic consultant, last month undertook a private survey of donors to a wide array of left-leaning organizations and Democratic campaigns. This week, they presented the results on a Zoom call with representatives from various organizations and Democratic groups.

They found that these donors were feeling more positive about Democrats in Washington than in years past, and that they remained energized but a significant chunk of them were in fact planning to donate less, now that Trump is out of office.

The study found that climate change and environmental issues were among their top concerns, even among donors who had given to causes unrelated to the environment. Almost all these progressive donors agree that climate change is a pre-eminent issue, Mr. Mellman said. Its obviously one that gets less attention from the press and from politicians but donors see it as a pre-eminent issue.

It also discovered that donors to these left-leaning groups had become more strongly partisan, with almost two-thirds of respondents to Mr. Mellman and Mr. Pruitts survey identifying as Democrats. That number has steadily climbed over the years: Back in 2007, after Democrats won control of the House as many voters lost faith in President George W. Bush, Mr. Mellman and Mr. Pruitt found that only about half of these kinds of donors were Democrats.

Mr. Mellman and Mr. Pruitt have undertaken studies like this at various moments since the 1990s, usually at what Mr. Mellman calls serious inflection points in national politics when the potential for giving and activism may change.

Its worth noting that these studies dont use what is known in the polling industry as a probability-based model, so their results are subject to forms of error that more scientific surveys wouldnt be. Still, their results can be revealing.

After Mr. Trumps defeat, there have been some signs of donor burnout. Close to nine out of 10 respondents said Mr. Trump had been one of the top factors driving them to donate in recent years. And upward of one in five grass-roots donors said they were now likely to cut back on their gifts to candidates and political parties.

The share who said they planned to increase their giving tapered down to nearly zero.

But Mr. Mellman isnt hugely concerned. This years study found one change from four years ago that he said was particularly heartening for his clients: Just as grass-roots donors to liberal causes have grown more partisan, theyve also grown more positive about the Democratic Party and its leadership.

Close to half of all donors expressed a positive view of the Democratic Party, and a wide array of top Democratic officials received broadly favorable ratings from the surveys Democratic respondents. Those include establishment politicians like President Biden and Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, as well as left-wing figures like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders.

There was a time when people were really dissatisfied with the party, this leader or that leader, Mr. Mellman said. That is not the case. There is admiration for the party, and nearly universal admiration for the whole range of leaders.

He added, Its not the case that any one faction has a hold on these donors.

The study also revealed that anxiety about Mr. Trumps continued influence on Republican politics remained a concern for many left-leaning donors. And that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene a former QAnon supporter and staunch Trump defender, whom Democrats stripped of her committee posts this year was nearly as well known and as intensely disliked as the former president.

Trump and Trumps policies motivated a lot of gifts and people recognize that hes gone. But there is still intense antipathy toward his supporters, Mr. Mellman said.

With Democrats controlling only a slim majority in both chambers of Congress, he said many donors still saw the opposition party as a threat to legislation on popular issues like climate change and voting rights. There is also a great fear that the Republicans are going to try to stop these proposals from being enacted, he said.

From Opinion

This piece is part of The Week Our Reality Broke, a series reflecting on a year of living with the coronavirus pandemic and how it has affected American society.

Last spring, as a poorly understood virus swept the planet, something remarkable happened: Across the country, all levels of government put in place policies that just a few months earlier would have been seen by most people not to mention most politicians as radical and politically nave.

Nearly 70 percent of states ordered bans on utility shut-offs, and more than half did so for evictions. Mayors authorized car-free streets to make cities safer for pedestrians, and the federal government nearly tripled the average unemployment benefit. Within weeks, states eliminated extortionist medical co-pays for prisoners and scrapped bail. New Jersey passed a bill that released more than 2,200 incarcerated people all at once.

The pandemic has been a long nightmare, but those were progressive pipe dreams turned reality. The arrival of the coronavirus, along with the wide-scale economic shutdowns to slow its spread, pushed American policymakers to admit that a new world wasnt just possible it was necessary.

While the United States ultimately failed to deliver a coordinated response to the pandemic and millions of people are still struggling, there are important lessons here. Over the past several months, Ive interviewed dozens of activists and policy professionals who have recounted stories of politics shifting quickly on issues they have worked on for years. Measures that were once viewed as likely to cause a spike in crime or a collapse of the housing market, or that were considered just too expensive or simply impractical have, in fact, worked out pretty well.

But many of these emergency interventions are set to disappear. The pandemics end now finally appears to be on the horizon, and millions are desperate to return to normal to our schools and offices, our family visits and holiday celebrations. But when it comes to so many issues from climate change to child care a return to normal is aiming far too low.

The pandemic offered glimpses of what is possible. But will all of this become a blip in history, or will it provide impetus for long-term change? The public has a genuine but brief window over the next few months to make America a fairer, more just and more humane place. If people recognize that, seize that and demand that, they could reshape this country for decades.

You can read the full article here.

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Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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Can Democrats Still Count on the Grass-Roots? - The New York Times

The Lake Research survey produced an unexpected result: Latinos were more sympathetic than either white or Black voters to Republican dog whistle messages.

The dog whistle messages tested by Lake Research included:

Taking a second look at illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs, is just common sense. And so is fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.

And

We need to make sure we take care of our own people first, especially the people who politicians have cast aside for too long to cater to whatever special interest groups yell the loudest or riot in the street.

The receptivity of Hispanics to such messages led Haney-Lpez to conclude that those Latinos most likely to vote Republican do so for racial reasons.

What matters most, Haney-Lpez continued, is susceptibility to Republican dog whistle racial frames that trumpet the threat from illegal aliens, rapists, rioters and terrorists.

Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, offered a distinct but similar explanation for the increased Hispanic support for Republicans.

What may be changing is how certain ethnic and nationality groups within Hispanics perceive themselves with regards to their racial and ideological identities, she wrote by email:

If Latinos perceive themselves more as white than as a person of color, then they will react to messages about racial injustice and defunding the police as whites do by using their ideological identity rather than racial identity to shape support.

Wronski reports that

there is also a burgeoning line of research on the role of skin tone among non-Whites. Nonwhites who perceive themselves as having lighter skin tone feel closer to whites and tend to be more conservative than their darker-skinned peers.

Wronski made the case that conservative Hispanics who voted Republican in 2020 are not permanently lost to the Democratic Party:

Identifying as a conservative and supporting conservative policy positions are not the same thing. This is especially true for economic issues, such as unemployment benefits and minimum wage. If you know that a group of Latinos tend to be symbolically conservative and economically liberal, then you can make appeals to them on the shared economic liberalism basis and avoid pointing out diverging views on social issues.

Marc Farinella, a former Democratic consultant who helped run many statewide campaigns in the Midwest and is now at the University of Chicagos Harris School of Public Policy, wrote in response to my inquiry that the fraying of Hispanic support is emblematic of a larger problem confronting Democrats:

American politics in recent decades has become increasingly democratized. Historically-marginalized groups have been brought into the political process, and this, of course, improves representation. But democratization has also, for better or for worse, been highly disruptive to our two-party system.

Traditionally, party leaders tend to support centrist polices and candidates; they are, after all, in the business of winning general elections, he continued:

However, the ability of party leaders to set the partys priorities and define its values has been eroded. They must now compete with activist factions that have been empowered by digital technologies that have greatly amplified their messaging.

As a result, Farinella wrote,

Its now less clear to general election voters precisely what are the Democratic Partys values and priorities. Last year, Republicans succeeded in exploiting this ambiguity by insisting that the messaging of certain leftist activist factions was an accurate reflection of the Partys policy positions and, by and large, the policy positions of most Democratic candidates. As far left activists compete with Democratic Party leaders to define party values and messaging, the centrist voters needed to achieve a durable majority will remain wary about Democratic desires for dominance.

On the other hand, according to Farinella, the lunacy currently underway within the Republican Party could prove to be the Democratic Partys ace in the hole:

A party that demands fealty to a single demagogic politician, condones or even embraces loopy conspiracy theories, recklessly undermines crucial democratic norms and institutions, and believes the best way to improve its electoral prospects is by making it more difficult to vote is not a party destined for long-term success. If the Republican Party continues on its current path, center-right voters might decide that their only real options are to vote Democratic or stay home.

Farinella acknowledged that this might just be wishful thinking.

Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, is concerned that liberal elites may threaten the vulnerable Democratic coalition:

The question for parties is whether members of their coalition are a liability because they repel other voters from the coalition. For Democrats, this may increasingly be the case with college-educated whites. They are increasingly concentrated into large cities, which mitigates their electoral impact, and they dominate certain institutions, such as universities and the media. The views emanating from these cities and institutions are out of step with a large portion of the electorate.

Many of these well-educated urban whites dont seem to appreciate the urgency of the struggles of middle and low-income Americans, Enos continued:

Most of them support, in theory, economically progressive agendas like minimum wage increases and affordable housing, but they dont approach these issues with any urgency even Covid relief and environmental protection take a back seat to a progressive agenda focused on social issues.

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, whose firm, North Star Opinion Research, has studied Hispanic partisan allegiance, wrote in an email that Latinos are far more flexible in their voting than African-Americans:

As a general rule, about 50 percent of Hispanics vote fairly consistently for Democrats, 25 percent vote for Republicans and the remaining 25 percent are up for grabs.

In the Latino electorate, Ayres said, many are sensitive to charges of socialism because of their country of origin. Many are sensitive to law-and-order issues. And many are cultural conservatives, as Reagan argued years ago.

As a result, Ayres continued,

When white liberal Democrats start talking about defunding the police, the Green New Deal and promoting policies that can be described as socialistic, they repel a lot of Hispanic voters. In other words, most Hispanics, like most African-Americans, are not ideological liberals.

The current level of concern has been sharply elevated by a series of widely publicized interviews with David Shor, a 29-year-old Democratic data scientist whose analyses have captured the attention of Democratic elites.

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Opinion | Democrats Are Anxious About 2022 and 2024 - The New York Times