October 10, 2018

Rock The Vote Accuses Eric Trump Of Stealing Its Voting Registration Graphic

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/eric-trump-rock-the-vote-graphic_us_5bbd04fee4b01470d056461e

Rock The Vote Accuses Eric Trump Of Stealing Its Voting Registration Graphic
The nonprofit told him that “claiming our graphic for partisan hackery when you support voter suppression & the disenfranchisement of millions is gross.

https://twitter.com/RockTheVoteAF/status/1049721049485459456

October 10, 2018

'Such an incredible increase:' Early voting numbers soar across Minnesota - Prez election numbers

http://www.fox9.com/news/early-voting-numbers-continue-to-soar-across-minnesota

So many people are voting by absentee ballot in Hennepin County that elections officials have to find a new way to look at the numbers.

“Usually we compare midterm [election] to midterm,” said Ginny Gelms, the elections manager. “We’ve seen such incredible increase in the amount of people voting absentee this year that we’re actually using the presidential election for comparison.”

The county is on track to match or exceed the number of absentee votes in the 2016 presidential election, Gelms said. As of Monday, 17,900 residents had turned in absentee ballots since voting started Sept. 21.

Image Gallery 2 PHOTOS

It’s not just in Hennepin County. Across Minnesota, voters have cast triple the number of absentee ballots as they had at this time in 2014, the most recent midterm election. The increase is rooted in multiple explanations but has political observers warning not to draw too many conclusions.

A high voter turnout has long been expected to benefit Democrats, because numerous polls have showed that party’s voters more enthusiastic than Republicans to vote this year. But a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll last week showed Republicans have matched Democrats’ enthusiasm in the wake of the battle to confirm new U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

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Across Minnesota, 42,552 people had turned in ballots as of Oct. 4, according to numbers released by the Minnesota Secretary of State. That’s an increase of 235 percent from the 12,710 absentee ballots at this time in 2014.

Democrats said the strong numbers advantaged their party.

“We believe this benefits DFLers and echoes the strong turnout numbers Democrats posted in the August primary election,” said Charlene Briner, a DFL spokeswoman, in a Sunday email.

But there’s little evidence that shows early voting translates into more votes cast on Election Day, Schultz said.

October 10, 2018

GOP nominee for Florida governor (Desantis) revealed as author of book excusing slavery

https://shareblue.com/florida-republican-ron-desantis-slavery-apologist/


In addition to defending slavery, Florida Republican Ron DeSantis also railed against women's rights and anti-discrimination laws.

Ron DeSantis, the GOP nominee for governor of Florida who kicked off his campaign by hurling dog whistles at his African-American opponent, is once again under fire for making racist remarks.

This time, however, he wrote the comments in a book.

During his 2011 bid for a congressional seat in Florida, DeSantis penned a little-noticed book focused almost entirely on attacking America’s first black president, arguing that President Barack Obama’s worldview was incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.

But in between the pages taking aim at President Obama’s biracial heritage and questioning his Christianity was an even lesser known section in which DeSantis jumped headfirst into a disturbing justification of slavery.

The discovery was first reported this week by the American Ledger, an American Bridge project.

In the book, “Dreams from Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama,” DeSantis defended the Founding Fathers for ratifying slavery in the Constitution.

DeSantis even argued that the Three-Fifths Compromise — which held that slaves could be counted as three-fifths of a free citizen for the purpose of representation in Congress — was really an “anti-slavery” move.

Framing his argument as a defense of the Constitution, DeSantis wrote that the Founding Fathers were compelled to ratify slavery, and that the Constitution wasn’t flawed just because it allowed slavery in the first place. Rather, DeSantis argued, the Constitution was perfect from the get-go because it enabled the abolition of slavery (75 years later, after a bloody civil war

October 10, 2018

One year ago the Limo was rusty and held together with duct tape

An upstate man said he and his wife rented the same limo and driver involved in a crash that killed 20 people in Schoharie, NY and claims the vehicle “shoulda been in the scrap yard.”

Andrew LaRose told Albany’s WNYT-TV that limo was rusty and held together by duct tape when driver Scott Lisinicchia showed up for his wedding one year ago.

“Air conditioner was broken, there was duct tape that was painted white, rocker panels were painted, it looked like it had been through a chop shop,” LaRose told the network.

The couple also said Lisinicchia was late picking them up from the reception and drove erratically with another passenger in the front.

“I noticed there were empty beer cans in the back. I noticed that he had a second passenger sitting shotgun right next to him,” he said.

“Then I asked him ‘who was this’ and he got pretty upset with me.”

While driving, Lisinicchia missed an exit and went in reverse right on the highway, La Rose added.

He made numerous complaints to the company, he said, and eventually was reimbursed for half the cost.

https://nypost.com/2018/10/09/man-who-rented-limo-in-deadly-crash-says-it-shouldve-been-in-the-scrap-yard/

October 9, 2018

We Asked Women What the Kavanaugh Vote Means for the Next Generation. 40,000 Responded.

We Asked Women What the Kavanaugh Vote Means for the Next Generation. 40,000 Responded.
Women across the political divide tell us what they hope the next generation will learn from Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/reader-center/women-kavanaugh-confirmation.html

After the Senate’s confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Saturday, we asked women across the country to tell us how they were reacting.

We heard from 40,000 people.

Many of the women — lawyers, teachers, home-schoolers, military spouses — expressed anger and bitterness over the nomination fight and those on the other side of the political divide. They also told us what lessons from this confirmation they will pass down to the next generation.

Here is a selection of their responses, edited and condensed for clarity. Please use the comments to tell us how you viewed this moment.

Jennifer Turpin is a hospice nurse, a rape survivor and a single mother of two who lives in South Carolina.
Roe v. Wade will not be overturned. It is the law of the land. Too many liberals are thinking with their emotions and not the rational parts of their brains, and this is causing them to act as if they are irrational teenagers.


Trump, Kavanaugh — these men are not going to take away women’s rights. In fact, if people would take a minute to look at the evidence, they would find much to the contrary.

Her lesson:
It’s important to stand your ground and fight for everything on which this country was founded.

October 9, 2018

CNN poll: Democrats are fired up and maintain a strong 2018 lead

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/09/politics/cnn-poll-midterms/index.html

Washington (CNN)Four weeks out from Election Day, Democrats remain well ahead of Republicans in a generic ballot matchup, with 54% of likely voters saying they support the Democrat in their district and 41% backing a Republican, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

This is the widest margin of support for Democrats in a midterm cycle since 2006, when at this point, the party held a whopping 21-point lead over Republicans among likely voters. That's also when Democrats seized control of the House from Republicans, making Nancy Pelosi speaker until 2011.

October 9, 2018

Doctored Image Takes Aim at Stacey Abrams

A doctored image of Stacey Abrams shows the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia holding a sign that labels herself a “Communist” and includes the hashtag “#MuslimBrotherhood.” Abrams is seen standing next to political activist Linda Sarsour, who wears a hijab.

“Heads up Georgia,” text above the image reads. “The Muslim Brotherhood is backing Abrams.”

There’s no evidence to support that claim, spread on Facebook with the help of more than 18,000 people who shared the manipulated photo.

The actual image, posted on Abrams’ Twitter account, was taken at a January rally in Atlanta that marked the anniversary of the 2017 Women’s March. Sarsour, a Palestinian-American Muslim, sits on the board of the Women’s March organization.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/10/doctored-image-takes-aim-at-stacey-abrams/

October 9, 2018

With the midterm election a month away, Trump seeks to keep Republican anger high

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-midterm-outlook-20181009-story.html




At the ceremony, Trump declared that he wanted to apologize to Kavanaugh “on behalf of our nation” for what he and his family had gone through.

“In our country a man or woman must be proved innocent unless or until proven guilty,” Trump said. “You, sir, under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent."

Trump last week lashed out at Kavanaugh’s main accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, over her inability to recall some details of the evening more than three decades ago during which she says Kavanaugh assaulted her. Until Monday, however, the president had stopped short of calling the account fraudulent, sticking with a Republican strategy of trying to avoid overt attacks on Ford that could drive away women voters.

As Trump shifted to a harder-edged approach, so too did some Republican Senate candidates.

In Missouri, for example, state Atty. Gen. Josh Hawley, who has made his support for Kavanaugh a major part of his campaign against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, said in a call with reporters that he agreed with Trump “that this process was a sham, and it was a disgrace.”

“It’s a very scary time for the rule of law,” Hawley said.

Over the weekend, Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, running against Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, criticized the #MeToo movement, labeling it in an interview with the New York Times as a “movement toward victimization.”

Those sorts of comments could increase the anger of women who feel that Republicans in the Kavanaugh fight belittled the experience of sexual assault victims, said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg.

The GOP strategy involves “significant risk,” Greenberg said. “Anything that boosts women’s turnout just strikes me as really, really bad for them,” she added. “At the House level, it’s a huge problem for them.”

Republican strategists say they see less downside.

Democratic voters “are already at a 10” in intensity, said veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “They can’t go to 20. They can’t vote twice.”

In any case, Republicans may see the risk as justified if it prolongs the current trend of higher levels of interest in the election on the part of their voters.

“The Kavanaugh hearings polarized rather than shifted opinion,” said Charles Franklin, a professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee and a longtime polling expert. “In other words, both favorable and unfavorable views increased,” he wrote in an email.

“On balance, I think that helps Republicans, who had shown some signs of a weakening embrace of Trump,” he added.

October 9, 2018

Is Trump Driving Women Away From the GOP for Good? Female voters have slowly drifted away from GOP

Is Trump Driving Women Away From the GOP for Good?
Female voters have slowly drifted away from the Republican Party for decades. Under Donald Trump, that trend has accelerated

resident Donald Trump has historically low favorability among women, with the Pew Research Center now reporting that 63 percent of women disapprove of how he is doing his job—compared with 30 percent who approve. That might not be surprising, given the range of things that Trump has said and done that might be seen as offensive to women. There’s the famous “Access Hollywood” tape that gave rise to thousands of pussy hats, the 22 women who have publicly accused him of sexual harassment and assault, and the hush money his personal lawyer has admitted to paying to cover up marital indiscretions. There is Trump’s tendency to insult women, from Carly Fiorina to Megyn Kelly to Mika Brzezinski. Most recently, there was his rally in Mississippi, during which the president mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that Brett Kavanaugh, who has since been confirmed to the Supreme Court, had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.

Trump’s election and performance in office have clearly pushed independent and Democratic women into action, resulting in record numbers of women running for office, and surges of women involved in local political organizing for the first time. But what about Republican women? Is it possible that Trump—and the Republican politicians who enable him—are not just alienating left-leaning women, but are permanently damaging the GOP’s female ranks, driving some splintering portion of women away for good?


Republican women still overwhelmingly support the president—84 percent of them, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll this week. But that statistic overlooks a broader trend: Fewer and fewer American women identify as Republicans, and that slow migration is speeding up under Trump. My conversations with pollsters, political scientists and a number of women across the country who have recently rejected their lifelong Republicans identities suggested the same—and illuminate why this moment in American politics might prove a breaking point for women in the GOP. According to pollsters on both sides of the aisle, that doesn’t bode well for the Republican Party either in this fall’s midterms—which are likely to bring a record gap between how men and women vote—or for the party’s long-term future.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/08/donald-trump-women-gop-221080

October 9, 2018

Trump on Jamal Khashoggi: "Hopefully that will sort itself out."

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1049411909492101120

Full quote, via pooler @rebeccaballhaus: 'On Jamal Khashoggi: "I am concerned about it. I don’t like hearing about it. Hopefully that will sort itself out. Right now nobody knows anything about it, but there’s some pretty bad stories going around. I do not like it."'