I’m not sure I’ve seen any better example of the Trump Effect. Scott Walker is reacting to the collapse of his campaign with a desperate and somewhat ridiculous new slogan aimed at out-Trumping Donald Trump. His campaign has been test-driving in the phrase for the last few days but in a speech this morning Walker officially vowed to “wreak havoc” on Washington on his first day in office. In other words, he’s just going to start breaking things, anything. Because he’s more hardcore than Donald Trump. “It’s time to wreak havoc on the status quo in Washington,” says Walker. Here’s the story.
Trump has gone too far with immigration-hatin’ even for Sheriff Joe.
I’ve been wondering for some time whether the bipartisan movement towards major criminal justice reform would survive first contact with the GOP presidential primary. Or to put it another way, could we get through the 2016 election without politicizing crime (and the associated issues of race and class) the way we have for the last nearly 50 years?
As recently as early this summer, reform advocates remained confident that the GOP field was generally on board with criminal justice reform. They saw that as a huge step forward, and it fostered hope for real reform at the federal level, perhaps even before the election. Then Donald Trump cannonballed into the race and suddenly we’re talking about crime like it’s 1988 all over again.
Tierney Sneed has some new reporting on the effect Trump is having and what reform advocates from the right and left are grappling with.
Nick Bagley with a good unpacking of yesterday’s important ruling on Obamacare and the House’s standing to sue.
Fascinating news on the possible discovery of a new species in the prehistoric human family tree. The sheer number of fossil specimens found in the South African cave that gives the new species its name — Homo naledi — is remarkable. Here’s how the New York Times put it:
You’ve heard this tune before: Legally suspect Obamacare lawsuit brought by health care reform dead-enders suddenly finds receptive federal judges and turns into real live threat to the biggest social justice reform of the last half century.
Here we go again.
Louis Gohmert vows to quit Congress and await the “nuclear holocaust” if Iran Deal goes through.
Between this and the Clawson story, do we need to bring in one of those grief support teams for DC Iran Hawks, like the folks they bring in after an airline disaster to provide crisis emotional support and grief counseling? It’s a tragic thing when you lack the emotional balance to avoid getting lost in your own theatrics and derp.
Losing is hard. Especially when you’ve been trying to win for a really, really long time and you start to see the whole thing slipping through your fingers. You probably saw this video yesterday of former Vice President Cheney’s rather comically ill-timed speech pushing to block the Iran Deal. In it there are some protestors who interrupt Cheney’s speech, hold up some signs, all pretty standard stuff. But in the video there’s a man who gets into a wild wrestling match with one of the protestors, flailing around his body, doing everything he can to tear her sign apart before finally sitting down.
We’ve got a deep dive look here on the latest unexpected turn in the long-running and definitely not done federal Bridgegate investigation. The part of the probe into top Christie crony – sometimes termed Christie’s political godfather – David Samson just led to the firing of several top executives at United Airlines, including the CEO, seemingly because they got their hands caught in the Christie/Port Authority pay-for-play cookie jar.