Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
A Slate columnist says that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is taking an increasing number of progressive positions, aligning himself with Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Ron Wyden, and going further than Joe Biden has in embracing policy directions we need.
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This joint event hosted by the Washington State Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Oregon showcased progressive leaders from the Pacific Northwest like U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on the eve of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
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“No one, even McConnell can herd these cats. The party – from top electeds to think tankers to party officials to voters — has become one big swarming mass of hack pundits competing to go viral.”
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Jennifer Epstein and Tyler Pager of Bloomberg: “This cycle, Biden’s team is working more closely with the DNC than any candidate in recent history, according to interviews with more than 20 veteran Democratic operatives. The two teams coordinate strategy on advertising, fundraising and messaging and share operational costs in ways that Clinton and Barack Obama did not do with the party.”
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“Expect to understand more about the best in modern political campaigning, and a chance to hear some inside stories from this year’s campaign.”
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Republican consultant Stuart Stevens: “Trump was the moral test, and the Republican Party failed… It’s an utter disaster for the long-term fate of the Party. The Party has become an obsession with power without purpose.”
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“[T]he Pavlovian urge to win the short-term news cycle, own the libs and defend the economic interests of corporate America and Trump’s re-election are combining with the predilection for conspiracy-minded thinking on the right.”
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“A revolution of policy or a renaissance of humanity cannot happen without participation in and access to the process — and we all will lose that access if we do not move in concert right now.”
Launch“Can we really push back against a machinery that was built to keep women (and so many others) out of the halls of power? Or will we simply have to swallow our emotions, tamp down our exhaustion, and resign ourselves to America’s misogyny as an immovable object?”
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The New Jersey politician formally joined the Cult of Trump at a White House meeting, where he was lauded by Trump, Trump’s kids, and Mike Pence. The House Democratic caucus responded by notifying Van Drew that he is no longer welcome among them.
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New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew has decided to sell out to the Party of Trump, presumably because he is desperate to get reelected in his Republican-leaning congressional district. Van Drew and his self-serving treachery epitomize what’s wrong with our politics.
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“A federal grand jury has indicted the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and a major Republican campaign donor on conspiracy and bribery charges,” The Charlotte Observer reports.
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Read five columns and op-ed pieces that explore the argument that Nancy Pelosi is the best choice to continue leading the House Democratic Caucus and to once again assume the constitutional role of Speaker of the House.
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“It goes beyond politics now. I’m a Republican, I’ll finish a Republican as I cruise through my 91st year. But you’ve got to put the nation’s interests and the state’s interests ahead of politics… I just feel that the Democrats have got superior credentials to what is being offered.”
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“In 1964, the GOP ceased to be the party of Lincoln and became the party of Southern whites. As I now look back with the clarity of hindsight, I am convinced that coded racial appeals had at least as much, if not more, to do with the electoral success of the modern Republican Party than all of the domestic and foreign policy proposals crafted by well-intentioned analysts like me. This is what liberals have been saying for decades. I never believed them. Now I do, because Trump won by making the racist appeal, hitherto relatively subtle, obvious even to someone such as me who used to be in denial.”
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Today, President Barack Obama received the Paul H. Douglas Award for ethics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his acceptance speech, President Obama returned to the political arena, blasting Donald Trump and the Republicans for their toxic politics of division.
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Democrats will not defeat Trump and his increasingly fanatical, revanchist party by promising the restoration of what came before him; the country is desperate for
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It does feel very much like 2010 reversed to me right now. — Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee, the head of the Republican Governors Association,
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Progressives have to speak to those left behind by wrenching economic and social change. But our voices are as authentic, and as worthy, as anyone
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“Taking inspiration from Virginia, Democrats are finally running to win in the states,” writes Joan Walsh. “But will the party make room for a different kind of candidate?”
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The winning formula is still what it has always been — turn out the base.
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