MORNING MESSAGE
If
you’re tempted to think campaign megamillions no longer matter because maverick
Republican Donald Trump is a self-financed near-nominee and Bernie Sanders has
fomented a nationwide rebellion on a tide of two million small donors, take a
look down-ballot ... The $707 million in super PAC funding is already double the
level at this stage in 2012. And huge hunks of that campaign hoard are being
rerouted into state races for senator, governor and Congress.
DEMOCRATIC TENSION BUILDS
Sanders
criticizes Democratic Party’s commitments in Oregon address. NYT: “Sanders
spoke at length about how Democrats had not spent enough time trying to help
working-class people obtain adequate health care and higher wages. ‘The
Democratic Party has to reach a fundamental conclusion: Are we on the side of
working people or big-money interests? … Do we stand with the elderly, the
children, the sick and the poor? Or do we stand with Wall Street speculators and
the drug companies and the insurance companies?'”
“Clinton
to take hard line with Sanders” at convention, reports The Hill: “Clinton
supporters argue the former secretary of State has already been forced to the
left by Sanders, and can’t risk moving further ahead of a general election … ‘We
can’t do it,’ [a Clinton] ally said. ‘But there’s going to be a place for him to
weigh in on the campaign and at the convention and he should have the
satisfaction that he raised some issues that have been a part of the
conversation.’ Sanders allies are frustrated … ‘He can’t demand anything but
she’ll want his full cooperation,’ one Sanders ally said.”
TRUMP FIRMS GRIP ON NOM
GOP
“resigned” to Trump, finds W. Post: “…many … now see him as the
all-but-certain nominee and are exhausted by the prospect of a contested July
convention, according to interviews this week with more than a dozen party
figures …”
Trump
is a “working-class fraud” says NYT’s Timothy Egan: “Wage stagnation is the
most glaring symptom of a declining middle class. Trump’s solution? He believes
that ‘wages are too high.’ … [Workers have] been protesting in front of his
gilded [Vegas] monolith because he will not allow them to join a union, which
could raise their pay an additional $3 an hour …”
BREAKFAST SIDES
“T-Mobile
Accused of Fighting a Real Union by Creating a Fake One” reports Bloomberg
Businessweek: “For more than a decade, the Communications Workers of America
has been trying to unionize T-Mobile … Now CWA is alleging to the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) that T-Mobile has adopted an anti-union tactic that’s
been illegal since 1935: creating a company-controlled union to drain support
for an independent one.”
Energy
issues impact several Senate races. The Hill: “President Obama’s
controversial climate policy is looming large in Ohio and Illinois, where the
coal industry still employs thousands, while battle lines are being drawn in
Colorado, pitting environmentalists against oil and gas companies over drilling.
In New Hampshire, the Republican incumbent, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, is racing to
shore up her credibility with green-minded voters, while hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, offshore drilling, and solar power could move a decisive number of
voters in the race to replace Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida.”
Ad
blitz for Garland. Politico: “To date, the outside allies have focused on
the states with the five most vulnerable GOP incumbents (New Hampshire,
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck
Grassley’s Iowa. Now they’ll be expanding the map to cover three more incumbents
up for reelection: Arizona’s John McCain, North Carolina’s Richard Burr and
Missouri’s Roy Blunt.”
“Unpaid
Annual Taxes Rise to $458 Billion” reports NYT: “…the I.R.S. said there were
average unpaid annual taxes of $458 billion for 2008 to 2010, a slight increase
from $450 billion in 2006 … the I.R.S. has been under pressure from
congressional Republicans who have simultaneously cut its budget and excoriated
the agency for operational deficiencies.”
Stronger
budget tools needed to blunt next recession, argues CBPP’s Ben Spielberg in NYT
oped: “Because interest rates are already so low, the Fed’s principal
ammunition — the ability to further lower rates — is unlikely to have much
traction when the next downturn rolls around … the prudent move would be to
strengthen the ‘automatic stabilizers’ in the federal budget — programs like
unemployment insurance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program … and
Medicaid — that, without the need for congressional action, expand when the
economy is weak…”
Progressive
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