@DKElections But with a runoff likely Bill Thompson well positioned
— @DemFromCT
The Marist polling of the NYC mayoral race will be out at noon.
HuffPost:
Latino voters disapprove of potential House GOP plans to address immigration issues without creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, according to a Latino Decisions poll released Wednesday...
The survey interviewed 800 Latino voters in 24 House districts, 400 of whom voted in the 2010 midterm elections and 400 of whom voted in the 2012 elections but not the midterms.
More of that
here.
Dana Milbank:
Now the immigration debate is really getting juicy.
Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, has always been a bit of a melon head, but he outdid himself in an interview that came to light this week in which he described “DREAMers” — people brought to this country illegally as children — as misshapen drug mules. “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that — they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” the honorable gentleman said.
Cantaloupe calves? This was a rotten tomato tossed at Latinos, who were already suspicious of Republicans before the insult was added to the injury of House conservatives such as King blocking action on bipartisan immigration legislation.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Gail Collins:
The revelation did have its moments of perverse fascination. Weiner’s nom de porn was Carlos Danger. We have never had a mayor with an official alter ego. Would it need a separate office? Maybe this is something other mayors would want to consider. Michael Bloomberg would probably want to be something like Horatio Health.
Also, it appears that Weiner’s long speeches in Congress about the single-payer plan might also have been a kind of mating call. “Your health care rants were a huge turn-on,” wrote the woman who reputedly talked dirty with him online.
You have to wonder whether there’s a right-wing equivalent currently texting some House Republican about how she gets hot and bothered every time he votes to cut entitlements.
Greg Sargent:
President Obama’s speech on the economy today was best understood as an opening shot in what he promised will be a sustained campaign to break the austerity curse that has gripped Washington ever since the 2010 elections persuaded Obama and Dems to enter into a defensive crouch in the big arguments over government spending and the economy.
As Ezra Klein notes, today’s speech was short on policy. It wasn’t a policy speech. It was a set up to something much longer. But that much longer thing could prove important. Obama said he’d be taking his case on the road in coming days in a series of speeches and appearances, and vowed to “engage” the public in an argument over the true nature of our short and long term economic challenges. Indeed, this speech was more of a template for what’s to come — a sustained argument against the prevailing pro-austerity prejudices that continue to hold sway in Washington and for a robust government role in creating jobs and securing long term middle class security.
Jonathan Martin/NY Times:
Amid increasing cohesion on the cultural issues that once divided Democrats, progressives say the party must shift away from its center-left economic stance and push more aggressively to reduce income disparity.
Norm Ornstein:
The Unprecedented—and Contemptible—Attempts to Sabotage Obamacare
Doing everything possible to block the law's implementation is not treasonous—just sharply beneath any reasonable standards of elected officials.
McClatchy-Marist:
Americans are fed up with the federal government collecting information on their phone calls, emails and Internet use, and they want curbs on what can be monitored, majorities say in a new McClatchy-Marist poll.
The July 15-18 survey also found widespread opposition to the Insider Threat Program revealed in a recent McClatchy story, a sweeping, unprecedented Obama administration initiative that has federal employees and contractors watching for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers.
“Privacy still counts, and federal employees snooping on each other, that’s out of bounds,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in New York, which conducted the poll.
You wanted bipartisanship? You got it. From the
WaPo:
A controversial proposal to restrict how the National Security Agency collects Americans’ telephone records failed to advance in the House by a narrow margin Wednesday, a victory for the Obama administration, which has spent weeks defending the program.
Lawmakers voted 217 to 205 to defeat the proposal from an unlikely coalition of liberal and conservative members. Those lawmakers had joined forces in response to revelations by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, that the agency has collected the phone records of millions of Americans — a practice that critics say goes beyond the kind of collection that has been authorized by Congress.