Tuesday Open Thread [6.28.2016]

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–NBC News/Survey Monkey—Clinton 49, Trump 41
WISCONSIN–PRESIDENT–PPP—Clinton 47, Trump 39
PENNSYLVANIA–PRESIDENT–PPP—Clinton 46, Trump 42
OHIO–PRESIDENT–PPP—Clinton 44, Trump 40
NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–PPP—Clinton 43, Trump 39
IOWA–PRESIDENT–PPP—Clinton 41, Trump 39
ARIZONA–PRESIDENT–PPP—Trump 44, Clinton 40

Apparently British Labour Party MP’s are not happy with their leader Jeremy Corbyn.

At an extraordinary meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in the House of Commons Monday, Jeremy Corbyn fought for his political life.

MP after MP lined up to attack the Labour leader and demand his immediate resignation, according to several MPs who were at the meeting. Corbyn point blank refused…

The Labour Party now faces an internal constitutional crisis, unable to remove a leader his MPs will not serve.

MPs emerged shell-shocked from the meeting, and told POLITICO they were contemplating the very real possibility that it will have to split. The Parliamentary Labour Party is now considering electing its own leader in a move which would essentially create a separate party. This nuclear option is being referred to by MPs as a “universal declaration of independence.”

Corbyn’s problem is not that he half-heartedly backed the Remain position. It’s that he backed it at all, because that was against what he stood for, and thus a half hearted campaign was what Labour was going to get in those conditions. Corbyn is an actual Socialist, and he believes that the EU is a corporate organization and thus opposes it on those grounds, rather than on nationalistic and racist grounds. He should have simply polled his MPs prior to the campaign, and if they were pro-EU, Corbyn should have resigned as Leader.

Jamelle Bouie explains why the Brexit vote doesn’t necessarily signal that Donald Trump will do well in the 2016 presidential election.

Here in the United States, our polls show a substantial Trump loss in the general election against Hillary Clinton, just as they showed a substantial Trump win in the Republican presidential primaries. The chief reason is that, unlike the U.K., the U.S. has a large voting population of nonwhites: Latinos, black Americans, Asian Americans, etc. In Britain, “black and minority ethnic” people make up about 8 percent of the electorate. By contrast, people of color account for nearly 1 in 3 American voters. In practice, this means that in the past two national elections, there has been an electoral penalty for embracing the most reactionary elements of national life. And we see this in the polling between Trump and Clinton. If the United States were largely white—if its electorate were as monochromatic as Britain’s—then Trump might have the advantage. As it stands, people of color in America are acting as a firewall for liberalism—an indispensable barrier to this surge of ethno-nationalism. Complacency isn’t called for, but confidence isn’t wrong either.

Kevin Drum speaks for me.

I don’t have any personal axe to grind on Brexit. Except for one: I am sick and tired of watching folks like Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, and others appeal to the worst racial instincts of our species, only to be shushed by folks telling me that it’s not really racism driving their popularity. It’s economic angst. It’s regular folks tired of being spurned by out-of-touch elites. It’s a natural anxiety over rapid cultural change.

Maybe it’s all those things. But at its core, it’s the last stand of old people who have been frightened to death by cynical right-wing media empires and the demagogues who enable them—all of whom have based their appeals on racism as overt as anything we’ve seen in decades. It’s loathsome beyond belief, and not something I thought I’d ever see in my lifetime. But that’s where we are.

Some people do that here too. They tell me people are voting for Trump because of their economic fears and their antipathy towards the “elite establishment.” Bullshit.

“Congress is poised for an epic failure in its efforts to combat Zika before lawmakers leave Washington for a seven-week vacation — and it could come back to bite Republicans at the ballot box if there’s an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in the United States this summer,” Politico reports.

“The stalemate carries real political risk: In 2014, Republicans blasted the Obama administration and Democrats’ response to Ebola, contributing to a public perception in the midterm election of feckless Democratic rule. Republicans gained control of the Senate that year — but now find their playbook is being used against them.”

“The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to vacate former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell’s public corruption conviction will significantly limit prosecutors’ ability to bring cases against politicians suspected of malfeasance and could spell trouble for the Justice Department in ongoing, high-profile cases,” the Washington Post reports.

“The ruling, which narrows what constitutes criminal corruption, will be an immediate boon for Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who is awaiting an appeals court ruling in a corruption case, experts said. Lawyers for former New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver (D) said the ruling also will be central to their client’s bid to overturn his conviction.”

“As Hillary Clinton considers her choices for vice president, she’s seriously weighing the potential negative impact her decision could have on Democratic efforts to retake control of the Senate, according to party members familiar with her thinking,” the AP reports.

“She’s also said to be worried about how her pick could affect congressional elections in 2018, at the midpoint of her presidency should she win the White House. Her political calculus underscores how closely linked she believes her success as president would be to having her party in power on Capitol Hill.”

Where Barack Obama failed as a President, and where Bill Clinton failed as a President, is in building the party up during their Presidencies. Hillary Clinton seems determined now to do that. But that should not prevent her from picking Warren. The same calculus would be at play if she picked Kaine, and Kaine’s state of Virginia has different laws and is not as blue as Massachusetts.

Byron York: “Now the polls are telling Trump something else. He’s not winning. He’s behind Hillary Clinton by a substantial amount in national polls and by smaller amounts in key state polls. The polls tell him he is in deep trouble with major voting groups — like Republicans, and women — without whose substantial support he can’t win.”

“Hillary Clinton is 6.8 points ahead of Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Another way of looking at that is Trump is farther behind Clinton now than Mitt Romney ever was at any time after clinching the 2012 Republican nomination. And Romney, as Trump has reminded the world many, many times, lost.”

“Clinton has led Trump in every single one of the last 21 polls in the RealClearPolitics average.”

If you have not watched Actor Jesse Williams’ (Grey’s Anatomy) acceptance speech from the BET Awards this past Sunday, after his acceptance of BET’s Humanitarian award, stop what you are doing and go here to watch it. My apologies, but BET does not allow embedding.

Rick Klein: “Live by the polls, die by the polls, kill the polls that give you bad news. As Donald Trump fights polling he views as unfair, the top line numbers in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll are the least of Trump’s problems. The poll shows that two-thirds of voters see Trump as biased against women and minorities, and two-thirds think his comments about the judge in the Trump University case were racist. Sixty-four percent see him as unqualified for the presidency, and 70 percent say the idea of Trump as president gives them anxiety.”

“Given those numbers, a 51-39 Hillary Clinton edge actually looks narrow. Clearly, there’s room for movement in either direction for Trump. But he’s dug himself a hole that suggests he could dip significantly lower before he’s done litigating polling quibbles.”

Washington Post: “At the urging of his wife, Jane Sanders, he has been talking to his inner circle about launching a grass-roots organization to harness the energy of his supporters. Among aides, there is chatter about who might staff such an organization, which might resemble Democracy for America, the group that former Vermont governor Howard Dean launched following his failed 2004 presidential bid.”

Good! His energies are better directed towards electing Berniecrats to the House and Senate and in State legislatures than in fighting over indexing language for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Dana Milbank’s take on Justice Kennedy, the 5th “liberal” justice:

The Republican-controlled Senate refuses to consider President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, but a fifth liberal justice has arrived anyway. Kennedy, a Reagan appointee and the longest-serving current justice, surprised many last week by joining the liberals in defending race-based affirmative action. In earlier terms, he provided the key vote in legalizing same-sex marriage.

It’s not that Kennedy has become a bleeding heart (he sides with the conservatives on gun rights, campaign finance and Obamacare) but that he has split with conservative colleagues such as Samuel Alito who, by temperament, are disinclined to find consensus. […]

He’s no King Solomon, but Kennedy, the perpetual swing vote, may be the dominant lawgiver of his day. Unlike Alito and Clarence Thomas (and, to a lesser extent, Chief Justice John Roberts), he recognizes the importance of public consensus on cultural issues, such as the growing acceptance of gay marriage. On abortion, which chronically divides Americans, Kennedy has avoided destabilizing change.

Ryan Cooper highlights Hillary Clinton’s “secret weapon”:

[W]e shouldn’t forget the final and most powerful advantage Clinton will have: President Obama.

No sitting president in modern times has ever campaigned at full strength for his party’s nominee. George W. Bush was persona non grata on the campaign trail by 2008. Bill Clinton was seen as damaged goods by Al Gore in 2000, who distanced himself from the Clinton name (despite the 42nd president’s tremendous popularity at the time). Ronald Reagan was already elderly in 1988 and did not have a great relationship with George H.W. Bush. LBJ quit politics altogether in 1968. Eisenhower did campaign a bit for Nixon, but he was also old by 1960, and avoided much of the campaign.

President Obama, by contrast, is still quite young (indeed, he is 14 years younger than Clinton herself), and by all accounts is eager to help Clinton, who represents the best chance of preserving his legacy. Any lingering sense that a soon-to-be former president should refrain from campaigning to preserve the dignity of the office is utterly dead. And as he finishes his presidency, Obama is more popular today than he has been since the bin Laden raid — part of an upward trend that shows no sign of slowing.