Mediaboss Marketing

(Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post)

The Democratic Party should not impose support for abortion rights as a litmus test on its candidates, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, because it needs a broad and inclusive agenda to win back the socially conservative voters who helped elect President Trump.

This is the Democratic Party. This is not a rubber-stamp party, Pelosi said in an interview with Washington Post reporters.

I grew up Nancy DAlesandro, in Baltimore, Maryland; in Little Italy; in a very devout Catholic family; fiercely patriotic; proud of our town and heritage, and staunchly Democratic, she added, referring to the fact that she is the daughter and sister of former mayors of that city. Most of those people my family, extended family are not pro-choice. You think Im kicking them out of the Democratic Party?

Those comments from one of the Democrats most powerful and high-profile women come at a moment of opportunity and struggle within the party. It has been shut out of power in Washington, controlling neither house of Congress nor the White House, and its ranks have been decimated at the state and local level.

Given Trumps unpopularity and the recent stumbles that Republicans have made in Congress, Democrats have great hopes of making significant gains in the 2018 midterm elections. But the opposition party is also gripped by an internecine battle for its own identity, moving leftward with calls for ideological purity by portions of its activist liberal base while also trying to reach out to the rural, working-class Americans who turned against Democrats last year.

Abortion has become a flash point.

Newly installed Democratic National Committee Chairman Thomas Perez and former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) came under criticism by abortion rights advocates during their unity tour last month, when they appeared together at a rally for an Omaha mayoral candidate who has sponsored legislature bills to restrict abortion.

Perez responded with a statement declaring that support for abortion rights is nonnegotiable for Democrats, and that they should speak with one voice on it.

At the time, Pelosi bristled at the party chairmans comments, saying on NBCs Meet the Press on April 23 that of course it is possible for an abortion opponent to be a member of the Democratic Party. She added that she has served for many years in Congress with colleagues of her party who do not share her own liberal views on the subject.

On Tuesday, she went further, arguing that the Democrats cannot afford to enforce an ideological test on the abortion issue.

In our caucus, one thing unifies us: our values about working families, Pelosi said. Some people are more or less enthusiastic about this issue or that issue or that issue. Theyll go along with the program, but their enthusiasm is about Americas working families.

She also suggested that the partys presumed rigidity on social issues is one reason that Democrats were unable to appeal to segments of the electorate that might otherwise have been in tune with their broader agenda.

You know what? Thats why Donald Trump is president of the United States the evangelicals and the Catholics, anti-marriage equality, anti-choice. Thats how he got to be president, she said. Everything was trumped, literally and figuratively by that.

Pelosis comments drew a guarded rebuke from Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading abortion rights advocacy organization.

Encouraging and supporting anti-choice candidates leads to bad policy outcomes that violate womens rights and endanger our economic security, Hogue said via email.

The platform approved by Democrats at their national convention in Philadelphia last year went further than the Party has ever gone to stand up for the womens rights. It didnt just seek to protect abortion access it sought to expand it, Hogue said. If the Democratic Party is going to gain back power, it cant go backward, it cant back down and it cant trade away these principles.

Polling indicates that a significant portion of people who consider themselves Democrats do indeed have misgivings about abortion, which has been legal nationally since the Supreme Courts 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Surveys by the Pew Research Center have generally found that about 3 in 10 Democrats say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

Pelosi expressed doubt whether any hard-line antiabortion candidate could win a Democratic presidential primary. She also noted that the debate over abortion no longer boils down to whether a candidate is for or against the basic right to the procedure, but rather over whether and what types of limits should be imposed.

As a result, within the Democrats, I dont think that youll see too many candidates going out there and saying, Im running as a pro-life candidate, she said. Its how far are you willing to go on the issue but lets not spend too much time on the subject.

Its kind of fading as an issue, she said. It really is.

Pelosi pointed to Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) as a case study in how the Democrats tolerate diverse views. Casey describes himself as personally opposed to abortion, but he has also fought alongside other Democrats against efforts to withdraw federal funds from Planned Parenthood.

Bob Casey you know Bob Casey would you like him not to be in our party? Pelosi said.

That name has particular resonance within the party. Caseys late father, Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey, was denied a speaking spot at the 1992 Democratic National Convention when he asked to present a minority report opposing the partys platform plank on abortion, which declared reproductive choice as a fundamental right that should receive government financing.

In the wide-ranging interview, Pelosi expressed satisfaction at the fact that Republicans in Congress have thus far failed to overturn the health-care law that was the signature domestic legacy of the Obama administration and one of her own greatest legislative accomplishments when she was House speaker.

Pelosi was able to win passage only after adding assurances that the new law would not use government funds for abortion. She also recalled: Look, we worked with the nuns. The nuns helped us pass the Affordable Care Act. The nuns. The Catholic nuns thank God for the Catholic nuns. The Catholic hospitals are speaking out against the current GOP legislation to overturn the law.

Do we subject them to a test and say, Before you speak out on this bill, we want to know where you are on this, that and the other thing? Pelosi said. No. No.

David Weigel contributed to this report.

Here is the original post:
Pelosi: Democratic candidates should not be forced to toe party line on abortion - Washington Post

Weve all heard plenty of theories for why Donald Trump won the election: racism, sexism, xenophobia, and, well, Russia. And a number of arguments have more to do with why Hillary Clinton lost than anything Trump did to win.

But now the Democrats say their own data reveals specifically why Clinton lostand it complicates any attempt to rationalize the bizarre results as a case of racist white men unleashed.

Thats because Democrats say the real reason the election went the way it did was because of the number of voters who cast their ballots for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 andswitched their allegiance to Trump in 2016.

We have to make sure we learn the right lesson from 2016, that we dont just draw the lesson that makes us feel good at night, make us sleep well at night, Democratic strategist Matt Canter said of the findings.

The report came on the eve of remarks by Clinton, who said she would have won the election if not for FBI Director James Comey revealing that she was under investigation by the agency over leaked emails from a private server she used while serving as secretary of state.

According to a report by McClatchy, the so-called Obama-Trump voters accounted for a two-thirds majority of the reasons Clinton ultimately lost the electoral college vote. McClatchy says several members of Clintons campaign team have reached a similar conclusion based on the same data.

Interesting for those thinking ahead to 2020 isthat, according to Canter, turning out more of the Democratic base wont be enough to sway the next election in their favor. Instead, the party will need to win over more moderate butconservative-leaningwhite,middle-class voters that helped Trump win swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

This idea that Democrats can somehow ignore this constituency and just turn out more of our voters, the math doesnt work, Canter said. We have to do both.

The good news is that Obama did well with these voters in two elections, meaning these voters are less ideological and more likely to vote for the candidate best aligned with their economic and personal interests.

Go here to see the original:
Democrats Say They've Figured Out Exactly Why Trump Won The Election - GOOD Magazine

President Trump, smarting at the notion that he was outmaneuvered by Democrats in their first real legislative showdown, is musing openly about seeking to scrap one of the last remaining checks the minority party has, even suggesting he might welcome a government shutdown this fall to further that end.

From the Rose Garden and his Twitter account Tuesday, Trump did little to hide his frustration with hardening conventional wisdom that the $1-trillion spending plan Congress expects to vote on this week represents a setback for his governing agenda, despite his party having the strongest grip on power in the capital in more than a decade, controlling the House, Senate and White House.

Meanwhile, members of both parties were at a loss to explain how what had on Monday appeared to be a rare bipartisan achievement in Washington had evolved 24 hours later into the source of recriminations.

As has often been the case with the president, this episode began with a morning series of postings on social media, in which Trump seemed to concede the funding package he signed off on over the weekend one that largely preserves funding for items he promised to slash, but does not advance his promised border wall was full of concessions to Democrats.

He then laid out options that could absolve him of the need for such compromise in the future: for voters to swell the partys ranks in the chamber to surpass the 60-vote threshold to overcome filibusters, or for Senate Republicans to eliminate the ability of any senator to demand a three-fifths majority to advance major legislation.

He capped that with a remark that seemed to embrace a fiscal crisis as a way to push his agenda.

Our country needs a good shutdown in September to fix mess! the president tweeted.

Aides later said Trump bristled at comments from Democrats claiming victory in the spending fight, as became clear when the president appeared in the Rose Garden hours later.

Flanked by members of the Air Force Academy football team in military dress, Trump boasted of the deals higher spending levels on defense, historic investments in border security, and funding for charter school programs. Put together, he said at the event congratulating the team, our Republican team had its own victory under the radar, Trump said.

And we didn't do any touting like the Democrats did, he added, before praising new military spending that he said fulfilled a core campaign promise.

Democrats had indeed been quick Monday to hail provisions of the spending bill that protected their priorities while averting what they called poison pill amendments like one to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. But legislative leaders from both parties were also eager to sell the package as an example of compromise that was possible if all sides acted in good faith.

This deal is exactly how Washington should work when it is bipartisan: Both parties negotiated and came to an agreement on a piece of legislation that we can each support. It is truly a shame that the president is degrading it because he didnt get 100% of what he wanted, Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said on the Senate floor.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) groused at having to respond to another presidential Twitter flurry as he faced reporters shortly after the tweets were posted.

When you look at the bill, there's a lot of good conservative wins here, he insisted.

On Monday morning, Trump had indicated he was satisfied with the agreement and noted both sides could claim victory. But by late Monday, Trumps budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, was dispatched to the White House briefing room to proclaim victories for the administration.

I'd be hard-pressed to figure how we could fund more of the priorities, he said then.

By the time the budget chief spoke to reporters again Tuesday afternoon, he said Democrats had tainted future negotiations.

The president is frustrated with the fact that he negotiated in good faith with the Democrats and they went out to try and spike the football and make him look bad, Mulvaney said. If Democrats dont change that posture, he added, a shutdown may be inevitable.

It wasnt clear why the president believed a government shutdown a costly, inconvenient and embarrassing affair would be beneficial at a time when Republicans control the White House and both chambers in Congress. The White House also could not clarify whether Trump was calling for an actual government shutdown; his tweet put the term in quotation marks, which he sometimes cites later as a sign he was not speaking literally.

The last federal shutdown occurred during a standoff between President Obama and Republicans in 2013 over healthcare, lasting 16 days. In Congress, neither side of the aisle wanted a repeat of that.

That the president would say, in effect, what this country needs is a good shutdown just speaks in volumes as to his insensitivity to what a shutdown means, or his lack of knowledge of what a shutdown means, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in an interview.

She questioned whether the comment was reflective of the advice of Mulvaney, a former South Carolina representative whom she called a ringleader of the 2013 shutdown.

Whats he complaining about? That left to their own devices, the Congress came to agreement? she asked, noting that securing Democratic votes in both the House and Senate has become essential to any government funding effort.

If the House and Senate do pass the spending bill this week as expected, it will fund government operations through the close of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. White House officials say Trump will be in even a stronger negotiating position by then.

We're hopeful that we can see as we go through the 2018 process more of a Republican-driven process, especially in the House, which would be a little bit more typical, Mulvaney said Monday.

But on the legislative front, it's unclear just what else Republicans will be capable of passing, given ongoing internal divisions and an emboldened Democratic minority.

Trump has been increasingly focused on the filibuster hurdle in the Senate. He called the chambers rules archaic in an interview on Fox News last week, one of many he sat for that was intended to promote his accomplishments during his first 100 days.

But while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was willing to deploy the so-called nuclear option to change Senate rules and allow Trumps Supreme Court nominee to advance with a simple majority vote, he and other Republicans have indicated that they are not inclined to lower the voting threshold to overcome a filibuster for legislation.

There is an overwhelming majority on a bipartisan basis not interested in changing the way the Senate operates, McConnell told reporters Tuesday. That will not happen.

The Trump administration is set to release a more detailed budget blueprint for 2018 later this month, part of a process that Republicans hope will be a vehicle to enact a far-reaching tax plan. First, they still hope to restart an effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

It is possible for Republicans to secure both without Democratic votes, McConnell said.

On everything else, the Senate has been known for its bipartisanship, and you're seeing a perfect example of it on the spending bill that will be on the floor this week, he said.

michael.memoli@latimes.com

For more White House coverage, follow @mikememoli on Twitter.

ALSO

Congress is on track with sweeping spending deal, but not much else

Trump's 'big beautiful wall' is not in the spending plan. Will it ever get built?

Trump holds a 100-day rally on friendly turf, snubbing the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Read the original:
Trump talks of possible shutdown next time as Democrats claim victory in spending fight - Los Angeles Times

100

Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about

The Democratic Party has been running without a moral compass.

Try Another

Audio CAPTCHA

Image CAPTCHA

Help

CancelSend

A link has been sent to your friend's email address.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

USA TODAY 4:49 p.m. ET May 2, 2017

At the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting in Atlanta.(Photo: Erik S. Lesser, epa)

Letter to the editor:

While Republicans are trying to fight terrorism and create jobs, Democrats are protesting for mens rights to use the womens restroom. Democrats are also burning American flags and waving the Mexican flag, marching with racist groups like Black Lives Matter and rioting to keep conservatives from being heard on college campuses. Democratic congressmen even placed a painting in the halls of Congress that depicts police as pigs. And how many of you got sick of hearing Democrats support the anti-American NFL player Colin Kaepernick while he refused to stand for the national anthem?

The modern-day Democrat is someone who supports abortion, yet calls our military torturers for running a little water up the noses of known terrorists. He is also someone who supports the Palestinian terrorists over the good people of Israel, and has more harsh words for Christianity than for Islamic terrorism.

The Democratic Party has been running without a moral compass for the last 30 years, but its all-out assault on Christianity in recent years is at a point of no return. If you are a Democrat, and call yourself a Christian, please explain to the rest of us how you make that work.

Mike Cloud; Lubbock, Texas

Facebook comments are edited for clarity and grammar:

Democrats are doing exactly what they need to sweep the midterm elections. They should keep it up! Actually, double down and maybe even lurch a little more left. Perhaps nominate a leading septuagenarian? Lean in, Democrats, your message is resonating.

Ken E. Consaul

I think there are many positive messages for Democrats after the presidential election. People have become engaged, including many in the fly-over states. We want our country back and want to see it move into a brighter future.

Janice Holladay

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2qvClKd

0) { %>

0) { %>

See the original post:
The modern-day Democrat is a big joke: Your Say - USA TODAY

Lets face it: The past 100 days have been a disaster for Democrats.

While much ink has been spilled in the past week assessing President Trumps first 100 days in office, the Democrats abysmal performance has largely escaped scrutiny. So lets review their record.

Democrats spent much of Trumps first months in office pushing their unfounded narrative of his alleged collusion with Vladimir Putin.

But that narrative went up in smoke when Trump launched missile strikes against Putins Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad. Then came UN Ambassador Nikki Haleys blistering speech before the Security Council laying the blame on Russia for failing to stop Syrias use of chemical weapons and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis charge that Russia is arming the Taliban.

Suddenly, were in a new Cold War with Moscow which pours cold water on Democrats case for Trump-Putin collusion. All that effort at character assassination down the drain.

Most damaging has been Democrats seemingly nonstop efforts to further alienate the millions of Americans who twice voted for Barack Obama but switched to Trump last year. Some point to a Post-ABC News poll that showed that Trump hadnt expanded his base of support since he took office. Well, he didnt need to: He won. (And the poll suggested that if the election were held again, hed not only defeat Hillary Clinton again but win the popular vote this time.)

The ones who need to expand their base are Democrats, and they utterly failed to do so. According to that poll, only 2 percent of Americans who voted for Trump regret their votes, while fully 96 percent say it was the right thing to do.

Today just 28 percent of Americans say that the Democratic Party is in touch with the concerns of most Americans today 10 points behind Trump.

Democrats have made clear their deep-seated contempt for the values of working-class, socially conservative Democrats who left their party in droves last year. The new chairman, Thomas Perez, has announced that pro-life candidates are no longer welcome in the party: Every Democrat, like every American, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable.

Democrats are completely focused on placating their frothing, left-wing, anti-Trump base and the American heartland thinks these people are insane.

They see women marching in anti-Trump rallies wearing pussy hats. They see left-wing mobs attacking Charles Murray at Middlebury College and trying to stop Ann Coulter from speaking at the UC Berkeley.

They see Bill Nye the Liberal Guy (honorary co-chair of the March for Science) asking whether people should be punished for having extra kids. (Which kid is the extra one?)

They see a horrible feedback loop of left-wing intolerance for their beliefs and way of life. And they see Democrats pandering to these people.

They also see that Democrats have not even made a pretense of cooperation with the candidate they elected. The Democratic Party is no longer the opposition; it is The Resistance.

These voters rightly ask: Resistance to what? The answer, they conclude, is resistance to ideas that are not their own. Resistance to the values of Middle America. Resistance to the candidate who promised to fight for them the forgotten Americans the Democratic Party abandoned.

The Democrats unrelenting, hyperventilating obstruction of Trump has sent a crystal-clear message to Obama-Trump voters: We dont hear you. We loathe your president and all of you who put him into office. And were going to show you what you can do with your Trump vote, by doing everything in our power to undermine the man you elected.

Cranking out the liberal base while alienating working-class, traditionally Democratic voters didnt work in 2016. It cost Democrats not only the presidency but the chance to take control of the Senate in a year when the playing field was tilted against the GOP.

Yet for some inexplicable reason, Democrats seem hellbent on doubling down on this failed strategy.

Trouble is, in 2018 Republicans are defending only eight Senate seats, while Democrats are defending 25 including 10 in red states that Trump won. And working-class voters in those states see that Democrats have utter contempt for their choice of president, and thus utter contempt for them.

A hundred days in, these voters remain loyal to Trump. Thats good news for the president. But for Democrats, its a disaster.

Special to the Washington Post

Read more:
Democrats are doubling down on failure - New York Post