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MAGA has McConnell Cornered

Plus: Here’s Why a ‘No Labels’ Campaign Could Be Even Worse Than You Thought

Jim Swift

Nov 8

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CHARLIE SYKES: Cassidy Hutchinson: Why I Testified
JVL: Who Won Last Night's Elections? Trump.

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A.B. STODDARD: It’s Over Mitch, Go Rogue.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) talks to reporters following the Senate Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on October 4, 2023. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

THERE ARE PROBABLY plenty of Derby days ahead back home for Sen. Mitch McConnell, but his time as the longest-running Senate party leader in history is coming to an end.
The 81-year-old Kentuckian looks different, and sounds different, than he did a year ago. His aging is pronounced: A fall and concussion, and then moments of freezing up during speech, have called his health into question.
Yet in the last year McConnell’s party has actually changed more than he has. And that is likely the bigger threat to his ability to stay in power.

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DENNIS AFTERGUT: Lessons for 2024 in the 2023 Elections.

FOR THOSE WHO WORRY about the future of our democracy and the rule of law, Tuesday’s off-year elections in three states should steady the nerves. All the more so because of the larger context: In the dozens of special elections held across the country earlier this year, Democrats on average performed 10 percent better than you would expect given the partisan lean where the voting took place.
It’s easy to overlook such facts, though, when our anxiety gets tweaked by “Mad Poll disease,” to borrow a term coined by Michael Podhorzer, the AFL-CIO political strategist

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DAVID MASCIOTRA: The Left’s Growing Antisemitism Problem

IF A UNITED, ROBUST MOVEMENT of progressive politics was ever necessary in the United States, it is at this exact moment. An increasingly authoritarian right, under the spell of bizarre conspiracy theories and revolving around the personality cult of Donald Trump, threatens the foundation of American democracy. Yet antisemitism, the most lethal prejudice and most dangerous conspiracy theory in the history of the world, is now thriving on the left. It is a moral outrage in itself, but it could also undermine progressive politics, robbing it of intellectual and ethical credibility in its fight against the nationalist-populist right.

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AMANDA CARPENTER AND BEN RADERSTORF: Here’s Why a ‘No Labels’ Campaign Could Be Even Worse Than You Thought.

NO LABELS, ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., AND CORNEL WEST are all right about one thing: the two-party system in the United States is a problem.
As any pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservative can tell you, it’s not great that we have only two options. The fact that voting against an authoritarian candidate often by definition requires voting for the Democratic party is hardly a hallmark of a thriving democracy.

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🚨OVERTIME🚨

Happy Wednesday! And thanks to all who came out to our new Bill & Tim livestream to discuss the off-off-year election results. New episodes will happen on future Tuesdays, I’m told.

Another loss for Glenn Youngkin… If losing the House of Delegates and not re-taking the Senate weren’t enough, the feds announced that Maryland will be the next home of the FBI.

The end of “Panda Diplomacy”? The much-loved D.C. pandas are returning to China. Nothing against the pandas themselves, but it was always a raw deal. It’d be like your friend renting you one of their puppies.

Are the kids alright? My quarterly check in with the alumni magazine of Young America’s Foundation.

Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term…Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.

‘We Live in a Land of Idiots’… A large legislature in a small state offers some tough lessons on the limits of government reform: don’t do what New Hampshire did.

This is why Lauren Boebert never debates… Steny Hoyer can barely contain himself. He is one of the House’s great debaters, though Boebert effectively opts to forfeit before he can get a question in. But he didn’t let her leave unscathed.

Democrats need to calm down about Joe Biden… Argues Max Burns at The Hill.

The anti-Semitic posts are coming from inside the House! Eric Swalwell keeps receipts.

Liberals Win in Loudoun… A strong rebuke in the place that helped make Glenn Youngkin governor.

DOJ announces arrests in ‘high-end brothel network’… used by elected officials, military officers and others.

January 6th won’t keep Trump off the ballot… In Minnesota, where its high court dismissed the complaint.

In Saint Louis… 40 percent (!) of eviction cases are filed by one lawyer.

…and in Cleveland… DE Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns is apparently a huge nerd, and I am here for it.

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