Good Day, Newsies! Today’s roundup is going to be light on commentary (from me, at least). I was a little short on time this week. But not to worry! It’s the GOOD NEWS that matters, and I’ve got plenty of that for you!
🔍 Russia Investigation 🔎
Michael Cohen has spent over 50 hours talking with investigators about several ongoing investigations. And we know that Michael Cohen has a lot he can tell:
“He Is Trying To Make It Right”: As The Midterms Approach, Michael Cohen Is Doubling Down On His Civic Duty, Emily Jane Fox, Vanity Fair, October 15, 2018.
Other than a few tweets and statements, Cohen has remained relatively quiet since pleading guilty, in August, to violating campaign laws by paying off women who claimed to have had affairs with Donald Trump at what he said, in open court, was the “direction” of the then-candidate. Behind the scenes, however, Robert Mueller’s special investigation into collusion and obstruction of justice continues apace. So does the Southern District’s probe into campaign-finance violations. Despite having no formal cooperation agreement with the government, Cohen has willingly assisted and provided information critical to several ongoing investigations, according to two sources familiar with the situation, in a string of meetings that have exceeded more than 50 hours in sum. (A spokesman for the S.D.N.Y. declined to comment. A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment. Cohen declined to comment.) These conversations are the latest manifestation of Cohen's brand of patriotism. In June, Cohen told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he would no longer be protecting Trump or the Trump family. “To be crystal clear,” he said, “my wife, my daughter, and my son, and this country have my first loyalty.”
Cohen’s disclosures to investigators remain an enigma, but his proximity to the president and his family make him a valuable witness. As The Wall Street Journal first reported earlier this month, and two sources independently confirmed to me, Trump directed Cohen to enforce the non-disclosure agreement with Daniels after the paper first broke the news of its very existence. Trump then deputized his son, Eric Trump, who is currently minding the family business, to coordinate the legal response to confidential arbitration proceedings, which would have prevented Daniels from telling her story publicly. (Daniels taped an interview with 60 Minutes in March. Trump has denied the affair.) Using his Trump Organization e-mail address, Eric approved the statement that the company’s lawyers offered the Journal about the arbitration. (Eric Trump did not respond to a request for comment, nor did a representative from the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization had publicly denied any role in the arbitration, and the president had vowed to cut ties with his business once he took office.) On Monday, a court dismissed the defamation suit brought against Trump by Daniels, ordering her to pay reasonable attorney’s fees.
👀 Sez who?
Something about this just strikes me as weird. We are getting voting encouragement from Michael freakin’ Cohen? I’m not sure what to make of this, but it probably p o’ed the Pretender, and any time that happens it counts as good news in my book:
Michael Cohen, now a Democrat, says the 2018 midterms could be “the most important in our lifetime”, Matthew Rozsa, Salon, October 15, 2016.
Also: Rachel Maddow mentioned this on last night’s show: Seems like Rick Gates has been a very cooperative witness so Judge Amy Berman Jackson has lifted the terms of bail that she herself imposed last winter. If Gates’s cooperation has been good enough to have his bail conditions eased, that sounds like good news!
Rick Gates Freed of Curfew, GPS Monitoring After Manafort Testimony, David Voreacos, Bloomberg News, October 15, 2018.
Rick Gates, the star witness in Paul Manafort’s fraud trial, was freed from a curfew and GPS monitoring after a judge credited his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and trial testimony against his former boss.
🎶 Musical Interlude 🎶
🌊 Election News 🌊
Trumpism Isn't Working In Two States Trump Won, Tarini Parti and Henry J. Gomez, Buzzfeed News, October 15, 2018.
Polls reflect that the same Rust Belt, blue-collar voters that propelled Trump over Hillary Clinton are not showing the same kind of enthusiasm for those candidates, even after Trump’s repeated visits and encouragement. Trump held rallies in both Ohio and Pennsylvania just last week. ✂️
The president’s job approval in both states has been underwater, with 53% of those surveyed disapproving in Pennsylvania and 54% in Ohio, based on the most recent polls available. In Republican-held districts in both states, Trump also campaigned for GOP candidates in special elections earlier this year, with the party narrowly winning in Ohio and losing in Pennsylvania.
‘Blue wave’ or ‘left-wing mob’? Anti-Trump fervor fuels a new movement aimed squarely at winning elections.Michael Sherer and David Weigel, Washington Post, October 15, 2018.
If the Nov. 6 midterm elections turn into what many Democrats hope will be a “blue wave,” swamping Republican majorities from Congress to state legislatures nationwide, it will have been powered in part by a new and sprawling network of activists on the left who, like Wilburn, have leaped into action over the past two years — energized by their deep desire to thwart the rise of Trump and his agenda.
Like the conservative tea party groups that rose up after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and that helped Republicans retake the House and gain power in state legislatures in 2010, this new liberal movement has emerged largely outside the traditional party structure. ✂️
“Coming together is the antidote. It’s the antithesis of the divisiveness,” said Lauren Friedman, an Ohio state Senate candidate and mother of three, who started organizing with Wilburn in Canton days after Trump’s election. “Even us just going and canvassing — that is making a change.”
Good article with points to keep in mind when negative nellies say that the Senate is out of our reach: Here are 5 ways a House victory for Democrats will impede Trump’s agenda — even if GOP keeps the Senate, Alex Henderson, Alternet/Raw Story, October 15, 2018.
With the 2018 midterms only three weeks away, Democrats are hoping to recapture both houses of Congress—although polls are looking much better for them in the House of Representatives than in the Senate. A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Sunday, October 14 showed an 11% advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot. But while Democrats, according to pollster Nate Silver, have a four in five chance (roughly 81.3%) of retaking the House on November 6, their chances of retaking the Senate are only one in five (18.7%). Democrats have many different paths to victory in the House, whereas in the Senate, they are facing a steep uphill climb.
But even in the absence of a Democratic Senate, a Democrat-controlled House could be a major thorn in Trump’s side and result in the type of gridlock that President Barack Obama faced from January 2011 on. Obama suffered a major setback when Republicans regained the House in the 2010 midterms, and gridlock would be returning to Washington, DC with enough Democratic wins in the House next month.
and some Polling news:
Poll: Democrats Surging in Pennsylvania, Steven Shepard, Politico, October 15, 2018.
Fewer than two years after Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to carry Pennsylvania since 1988, a new POLITICO/AARP poll shows both Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf with double-digit leads over their GOP challengers. And Democrats have a slight edge on the generic congressional ballot — which, combined with a new, court-imposed congressional-district map unwinding GOP gerrymandering, portends major gains in next month‘s elections.
The top issue for voters in Pennsylvania is health care: Nearly 3 in 4, 74 percent, say it’s “very important” to their vote in November, out-rating the economy and jobs (72 percent), Social Security (67 percent) and national security and terrorism (65 percent). For voters 50 and older, Social Security (81 percent) only slightly outpaces health care (79 percent).
And check out Utah! 👀
⚖ Justice ⚖
Florida Supreme Court rules Scott may not pick justices before he leaves, Daytona Beach News-Journal, October 15, 2018.
Scott, who will leave office in January and is running for U.S. Senate, had repeatedly asserted the right to appoint replacements for Justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis and Peggy Quince, who will leave the court in January because they have reached a mandatory retirement age.
But in a brief, unsigned order Monday, the Supreme Court said Scott “exceeded his authority” in directing a judicial nominating commission to meet and forward a list of potential justices to him by Nov. 10. More than four dozen judges and lawyers submitted applications by a deadline last week to the nominating commission, which had scheduled interviews with the applicants in early November.
But the court ruling Monday blocked Scott’s action through a legal procedure known as a writ of quo warranto, which had been sought by the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida.
😈 Meanwhile, From The Schadenfreude File 😈
Trump rallies are getting less and less TV coverage, Tom Boggioni, Salon, October 15, 2018.
“What do you think is happening here?” asked AM Joy fill-in host Ali Velshi. “Why is Donald Trump [avoided] after so long being able to manipulate the media into covering his stuff and creating good ratings — what’s happening? “
“I think it is saturation,” ShareBlue editor Eric Boehlert explained. “He calls into Fox News at eleven o’clock at night. He calls back the next morning for a 45-minute rambling interview.”
“At the end of the interview, the host says, ‘Shouldn’t you be running the country at this point? ” Boehlert added while laughing. “It’s not good for business, right? He’s not providing anything new. He’s producing just redundant programming and for Fox News, for instance, you know, these hour-long rallies are in primetime — they can’t run any ads.”
Not only that, the rallies are getting smaller:
and in Texas…
Regretful Trump voters tell CNN why they’ve turned on ‘the dictator in White House’: ‘All he’s done is surround himself with crooks’, Brad Reid, Raw Story, October 15, 2018.
A panel of former Trump voters on Monday told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that they deeply regret their decision — and now they’re going to back Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections.
Independent voter Anthony Miles, who was attracted to President Donald Trump’s outsider status in the 2016 election, said he was hugely disappointed in the president getting caught up in one corruption scandal after another.
“He said the system was rigged, and he said he was going to be a new sheriff in town,” Miles said. “And all he’s done is surrounded himself with crooks. How many people have been indicted who are in close cahoots with him?”
Miles also referred to Trump as “the dictator in the White House.”
Poor fella-> Fox News Host Tucker Carlson ‘Can’t Really Go’ to Restaurants Anymore, The Daily Beast, October 15, 2018.
Maybe a little music will cheer him up:
⚡️ Lightning Roundup ⚡️
(Many thanks to pr0gressivist for the first four of these! 💕)
⚡️ Robocall relief: New $100 million system may help frustrated consumers, Tracey Kaplan, BayAreaNewsGroup/The Mercury News, October 15, 2018.
⚡️ Amazon donates $2M to create fund to help immediate needs of Seattle school students, Frank Catalano, GeekWire, October 15, 2018.
⚡️ Key to Efficiently Turning Light Into Electricity Found in Crystals, Loukia Papadopoulis, InterestingEngineering, October 15, 2018
⚡️ A doctor is taking over Planned Parenthood — and she’s ready to fight, Samantha Schmidt, Washington Post, October 14, 2018.
⚡️ Good read 🌊: If there is a blue wave, women will drive it, Beatrice Jin, Politico, October 12, 2018.
⚡️ Everyone loves baby news!: Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Are Expecting A Baby, Laurel Wamsley, NPR, October 15, 2018.
⚡️ Here’s hoping: The comeuppance for Evangelicals who sold their souls to Trump is coming, History News Network-Commentary/Raw Story, October 15, 2018.
⚡️ ‘Pissed’ Ari Emanuel Called Jared Kushner to Vent About Saudi Khashoggi Fiasco, Asawin Suebsaeng and Maxwell Tani, Daily Beast, October 15, 2018.
💪 Action Roundup 💪
Job 1: Check your voter registration and make your plan to vote!
Here are a few helpful sites:
League of Women Voters Excellent resource for voting registration, finding your polling place, ballot info, etc.
Rock the Vote Geared toward younger voters.
Register to Vote and Confirm or Change Registration This is the U.S. government site.
Job 2: If you can spare a few minutes and a few envelopes and stamps, please consider signing up at Vote Forward to send letters of encouragement to inactive voters. It is a great way to help GOTV. Letters can be written now and mailed October 30, the date that research has shown will have the most beneficial impact/timing for encouraging people to go and vote. I saw it on Goodie’s GNR Saturday, signed right up and have now written my first five letters. I intend to write as many as I can before October 30 (I’ll post pictures next week! :-D). You can check out peregrine kate’s diary about it here. And here is a direct link to the site:
Vote Forward
THANKS TO OLDHIPPIEDUDE
Consider giving some support to Spread the Vote, which is working in several states to assist would-be voters without required ID’s. They take care of everything from obtaining necessary documents to providing transportation to necessary agencies, and they pay for everything.
AND AS ALWAYS:
Please don’t forget the families who were forcibly separated by this evil so-called *administration*. Check out oldhippiedude’s action list here.
The ActBlue link is an easy way to contribute to 14 organizations, including the ACLU, who are working to help these families.
Also:
Donate to ActBlue
Donate to Swing Left
Send postcards to voters in other districts
Sign up to go door to door in your district
Sign up to drive people to the polls
Find your local Democratic Party and volunteer!
Plus! Check out Yosef 52's diaries, posted daily, chockerblock full of ideas and information.
And FreewayBlogger
🐩 Roundup WindDown 🐩
Here is your Tuesday reminder to make time for rest and recharging as you continue to do everything you can to help bring about a blue wave on November 6th. You are valued and you are needed, so take good care of yourself!
The curlygirly has a few tips, as usual:
Since it’s October (and like jessiestaf, I love this month!), here’s a musical selection to get the blood pumping (if you are easily startled, prepare yourself for @ 2:35) — Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite as imagined in the Disney animated film, Fantasia.
Happy Tuesday, Newsies!