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Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime HarrisonJaime HarrisonDemocrats bet on stimulus bill to boost them in 2022 The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Biden to hit road, tout COVID-19 relief law DNC gears up for midterm push MORE said his party must battle the damage to the Democratic brand.

Its not even just with Republicans, the Democrat brand with some of the folks who are core at the base of our party is not the greatest. And so I want to spend a lot of time, energy, and effort understanding why the brand is where it is, what it is and how, and what we can do in order to improve it, Harrison toldThe Daily Beasts podcast The New Abnormal.

Harrison, who ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2020 to unseat Rep. Lindsey GrahamLindsey Olin GrahamLawmakers say fixing border crisis is Biden's job Graham cites Hurricane Katrina as reason to own AR-15 Hunter Biden blasts Trump in new book: 'A vile man with a vile mission' MORE (R-S.C.), spoke about his own experience battling the tarnished Democratic brand in South Carolina.

I experienced it on my own race, Lindsey [Graham] and his crew of dark money effectively labeled me as somebody who believed in defunding the police. My grandfather on my stepfathers side was in the Detroit police department for 40 years. So I dont believe in that, Harrison said.

But they were able to do it because the Democratic brand had been so tarnished in South Carolina that people would believe anything. If they said, Jamie kicked a puppy the other day, they would have believed it, he added.

Harrison stressed the importance of selling Democrats' accomplishments and focusingonrural and red-state America, where he says the American Rescue Plan will help constituents.

We have to take credit and claim the things that we will have gotten done over the course of this next two years. Were going to do a lot for rural America, Harrison said.

The American Rescue Plan has so much in there for rural communities across this country. And it will have a huge benefit, this infrastructure plan, when we get this done. The broadband component in it alone will totally transform rural America, he added.

Harrison said listening to and delivering for rural and red-state America will in turn help grow the base, and persuade a few other folks to take a look at us.

Those communities are also just as diverse as urban communities. We also need to make sure that were listening to them, Harrison said.

And then, in the end, weve got to deliver and I believe we can do those things. Not only will we grow our base, but I think we also persuade a few other folks to take a look at us, he added.

Thecomments from Harrison come as the DNC is beginning to gear up for the 2022 midterm elections. While in past years the DNC has tended to take a less-active role in midterm elections, the committee announced a coordinated campaign last month to sell President BidenJoe BidenLawmakers say fixing border crisis is Biden's job Trump calls for Republicans to boycott companies amid voting law controversy White House: GOP has 'struggled to articulate a reason' to oppose infrastructure plan MOREs coronavirus relief package to battleground state voters.

The committee also distributed a message guide to state party officials and national Democrats on how to promote the legislation.

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DNC chair: We have to 'battle the damage to the Democratic brand' | TheHill - The Hill

Amazon has apologized to the congressman Mark Pocan, admitting to scoring an own goal in its initial denial of his suggestion its drivers were sometimes forced to urinate in bottles during delivery rounds.

We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed, the company said in a blogpost.

Its admission came a week after the Wisconsin Democrat criticised working conditions for Amazon staff, saying in a tweet: Paying workers $15 [an hour] doesnt make you a progressive workplace when you union-bust and make workers urinate in water bottles.

Amazon responded: You dont really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us.

It subsequently walked back that comment.

This was an own goal, were unhappy about it, and we owe an apology to Representative Pocan, Amazon said in its blogpost, adding that its previous response only referred to staff at warehouses and fulfilment centers.

In response, Pocan tweeted: Sigh. This is not about me, this is about your workers who you dont treat with enough respect or dignity.

Amazon said urinating in bottles was an industry-wide problem and shared links to news articles about drivers for other delivery companies who have had to do so.

Regardless of the fact that this is industry-wide, we would like to solve it, the company said. We dont yet know how, but will look for solutions.

The apology comes as workers at an Alabama warehouse are waiting for a vote count that could result in the online retailers first unionized facility in the US, which would be a watershed moment for organized labor.

Amazon has long discouraged attempts among its more than 800,000 US employees to organize. Allegations by many workers of a grueling or unsafe workplace have turned unionizing the company into a key goal for the US labor movement.

Pocan tweeted that the company should acknowledge the inadequate working conditions youve created for all your workers, then fix that for everyone and finally, let them unionize without interference.

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Amazon apology to Democrat includes admission drivers urinate in bottles - The Guardian

Former President Donald Trump's appeal to Latino voters may have been more widespread than originally thought, according to new research.

Democratstouted their focus on increasing turnout among minority voters for the 2020 elections, but Latino voters with low involvement in politics shifted toward Trump, according a new report from Equis Labs, which describes itself as focused on the "Latinx community."

TRUMP SAYS COMPANIES PLAYING TO 'WOKE CANCEL CULTURE' OVER GA. ELECTION BILL, CALLS FOR BOYCOTT

"Trump gains seemed to be unique among those identifying as Latino across geography and place of origin," the researchers wrote.

Trump also "galvanized" conservative Latinas, while liberal Latinas lost enthusiasm about voting, according to the report.

FILE - Trump give a thumbs up to the cheering crowd after a Latinos for Trump Coalition roundtable in Phoenix, in this Sept. 14, 2020 file photo. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

Democrat-linked Equis Labs offered various theories about why Trump appealed to Latino voters, including "dog whistle politics & racial status anxiety" and "activation around religion, SCOTUS and QAnon."

"Neither party should assume that a Hispanic voter who cast a ballot for Trump in 2020 is locked in as a Republican going forward," the researchers wrote."Nor can we assume this shift was exclusive to Trump and will revert back on its own."

Trump's increased support from Latino voters in 2020 to 2016 was not enough to win him the election, however. President Biden won Latinos by a roughly two-to-one margin, while Trump had the support of roughly one in three, according to exit polls.

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The Trump campaign was outspending the Biden campaign on Spanish-language ads in the run-up to the election.

Nearly 17 million Latinos voted in the 2020 general election, a more than 30% increase compared to 2016, according to UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative data cited by The New York Times.

Original post:
Democrats still searching for answers on Trump's appeal to Latinos in 2020 election - Fox News

By Mike Umbenhaur, Pastor Woodland Presbyterian Church

One of the side-effects of being ordered to shelter-in-place for all this time has to be acquiring a desire to watch television, movies or LIVE-streaming videos. I cannot believe how much I have watched series after series; sometimes spending an entire day binge-watching something! I know that is probably not how a pastor should be spending his time. However, I know that I am NOT alone!

A series that my wife and I watched, as did many others, was Netflixs The Queens Gambit. It is the story of an orphaned girl, who learns the intricacies and finer points and strategies of chess. Her journey is filled with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as her rise to the top in the world of chess in the 1960s. She had the ability to see her opponents options several moves ahead. It allowed her to understand and escape traps that were laid for her and the ability to set traps for her challengers.

Contrary to what so many viewers expected, she did not win every match. But she did learn from her mistakes, and several times was able to see she had at least one more move to make.

That reminds me of a story (I do not know where the story originated) of two men visiting an art museum. They were enjoying a painting entitled, Checkmate. It featured a man playing chess against the devil. The man has only his king left. Hence the title. One of the two men looking at the painting notices something and says, We have to find the artist! Either the picture has to be changed or the title of it has to change! And the other man asks his friend, Why? The man says, Because the king still has one more move!

Friends, that is the story of the Resurrection of Jesus. His followers came to the tomb that morning and all they could see was Checkmate. They had given up dreaming and given up hope. But the angel at the tomb that morning said, He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay (Matthew 28:6).

You may be facing financial loss or marital strife; you may be estranged from your children or your parents. You might be standing at the graveside of a loved one, and it all feels like checkmate.

Whatever you face, today or tomorrow, Jesus promise to everyone who puts their trust in Him is this: There is hope! Even when it feels like checkmate, its not, becauseTHE KING STILL HAS ONE MORE MOVE! He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Link:
Perseverance when faced with a checkmate | Clergy Corner - Woodland Daily Democrat

WASHINGTON (AP) A defeated Democrat abruptly dropped her bid Wednesday to challenge her six-vote loss for a House seat from Iowa, abandoning what loomed as a long legal and political battle in the face of shaky support from her own party.

In a statement, Rita Hart said she was abandoning her effort to have the Democratic-controlled House award her the seat, blaming a toxic campaign of political disinformation that she said had effectively silenced the voices of Iowans. While her campaign said it found 22 uncounted ballots, enough to make her the winner, she said shed made her decision following many conversations with people I trust about the future of this contest, whom she did not identify.

It is a stain on our democracy that the truth has not prevailed and my hope for the future is a return to decency and civility, Hart wrote. Her barbs were aimed at Republicans who strenuously fought her effort to reverse her loss.

Freshman Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, the victorious Republican, thanked Hart in a one-paragraph statement. In January, Miller-Meeks was sworn into the southeastern Iowa seat, vacated by a retiring Democrat, while Hart pursued her challenge.

I know how extremely difficult it is to lose an election, but for the people to have faith and confidence in the election system and Iowa laws, it was gracious of her to concede at this time, Miller-Meeks said.

Harts appeal to the House ran smack into reluctance by some within her own party to do what they vehemently opposed doing just months ago reversing Donald Trumps presidential election defeat by overruling state-certified election results.

Rather than pursue her case in Iowa courts, Hart immediately asked the U.S. House to examine the balloting, asserting she lacked adequate time for a court challenge.

It also came as a battle over voting rights is escalating around the country.

Republicans enacted a strict new voting law in Georgia and have pushed other restrictive bills in other states, feeding off Trumps false assertions of rampant election fraud. Congressional Democrats have responded with H.R. 1, a House-passed bill that has stalled in the Senate that would essentially override many state curbs and make voting easier.

See: Voting rights intensify as partisan battleground, with Democrats pushing H.R. 1 and Republicans altering election procedures at state level

Also see: A step backward: Coca-Cola joins fellow top Atlanta employer Delta in blasting new Georgia voting curbs as undemocratic

Miller-Meeks initially won on Election Day by 47 votes, a margin that was trimmed to six in a recount Hart demanded and then officially certified by bipartisan Iowa officials. Citing the 22 uncounted ballots, Hart filed her challenge with the House, which under the Constitution decides such disputes.

Republicans relentlessly battered Hart and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for pursuing the case, arguing that Democrats were trying to steal an election theyd rightfully lost. Most Republicans making that argument including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and a majority of House GOP lawmakers backed Trump when he fought for weeks to undo his own state-certified defeat.

Pelosis attempted power grab failed. And Iowans and America are better off because of it, McCarthy, who appeared with Miller-Meeks in Iowa Wednesday, said in a written statement.

See: Kevin McCarthy becomes poster boy for Republicans walking back their recent Trump criticism as voter base stands by defeated president

Rather than pursuing her case in Iowa courts, Hart immediately asked the U.S. House to examine the balloting, asserting she lacked adequate time for a court challenge.

Though she had the right to do that, Republicans accused her of taking her case to the House because Democratic control there increased her chances of winning.

Democrats said there was no comparison between Trumps unfounded election challenge and Harts, whose team produced sworn affidavits from the voters whose ballots werent counted. And party leaders including Pelosi defended Harts right to have the House re-examine the voting and award her the seat.

But at least seven Democratic lawmakers publicly voiced reluctance to back her, and some party officials said opposition was even more widespread than that.

Those numbers would have been more than enough for Hart to lose a vote of the full House, which her party controls by just 219-211, with five vacancies.

Democratic unease over backing Hart was intensified by the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters who disrupted Congress as it was counting the Electoral College votes that produced now President Joe Bidens victory. That assault resulted in five deaths.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., speaking last week to Yahoo News, cited GOP efforts to override Trumps defeat, including by rioters who used violence to stop us from certifying an election. She added, I cant turn around and vote to decertify something thats been stamped and approved in Iowa.

Pelosis office did not immediately issue a statement.

But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., chairperson of the House Administration Committee, acknowledged Harts withdrawal. That panel had begun examining the case, including collecting legal briefs from both sides, and the wrangling seemed likely to last at least into summer.

There being no contestant, there is no longer a contest, and the Committee will, accordingly, recommend that the whole House dispose of the contest and adopt a dismissal resolution reported out by the Committee, Lofgren said in a statement.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he respected Harts decision but cast it in the broader context of voting-rights battles around the country.

Maloney, whose committee helps run his partys House campaigns, accused Republicans of throwing up roadblocks to the ballot box at every turn and said Democrats will always fight to ensure every American can vote and that every legal vote is counted.

Mike Berg, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Republicans were glad Hart admitted that Miller-Meeks had won and added, We wont let voters forget that Democrats will do whatever they can to subvert democracy if given the opportunity.

Miller-Meekss win was the narrowest House election since the Democratic-led chamber awarded a disputed Indiana seat to a Democrat by four votes after the 1984 election.

See the article here:
Iowa Democrat Rita Hart drops bid to claim U.S. House seat lost by six votes to Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks - MarketWatch