Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that all of us–straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender–could marry the person they love. This decision brought our nation one step closer to equality. But this journey is not over. Even in an America where we are free to marry, other basic civil rights are lacking. Thirty-one states lack fully inclusive non-discrimination protections for LGBT people in critical matters of employment, housing, and access to public places. That means in many states, LGBT Americans are still at risk of being denied services, being fired for getting married and wearing their wedding ring to the office the next day, or simply for being who they are. This injustice has grown increasingly intolerable to an overwhelming majority of Americans.
Today, Democracy Corps, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and the Human Rights Campaign release the results from a new survey of likely 2016 voters. This survey reinforces voters’ long-held commitment to non-discrimination, as four out five voters believe this is a basic civil right. This survey also demonstrates voters are willing to oppose candidates for public office who oppose these basic civil rights, including groups critical to the outcome of the 2016 election. These results are very consistent with a Human Rights Campaign survey of likely voters taken in January showing 43 percent are much less likely to support a candidate who opposes non-discrimination.
Moreover, the issue of “faith” does not change the politics of this issue. Voters do not accept religion as an excuse to discriminate.
This memorandum summarizes the results of a national telephone survey of 950 likely 2016 voters. In order to better reflect the changing habits and demography of the country, 60 percent of those interviewed for this survey responded using cell phones. The survey was conducted June 13-17, 2015 and carries a margin of error of +/- 4.38.
Key Findings

• Voters reject discrimination. By an impressive 78 percent to 16 percent, voters support protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination in employment. These results are very consistent with past surveys; in 2011, voters supported this proposal by a 79 to 18 percent margin.
• Support for non-discrimination unites the country. At a time when Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything, they agree on this. A 64 percent majority of Republicans support protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination, as do 90 percent of Democrats. Similarly, this legislation draws impressive majorities among college (84 percent) and non-college voters (73 percent), younger (85 percent) and older (75 per-cent), as well as observant Christians (70 percent favor).
• Voters will also consider this issue when voting next year. A 59 percent majority of voters are less likely to support a candidate for president who opposes protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the work place. Just 27 percent are more likely and 9 percent say it would make no difference. This is not just a progressive base issue. A 61 percent majority of Independent voters say they are less likely to support a candidate who opposes these protections, as do 58 percent of Catholic voters, 54 percent of blue collar voters and 60 percent of married women.
• This could be key issue among white millennial voters. Arguably, the most interesting group in this debate is white millennial voters (defined here as voters born between 1980 and 1997). These younger white voters supported Obama in 2008, but voted Republican in 2010, 2012 and 2014, reflecting their frustration with the slow pace of change. However, they are committed to equality. A near-unanimous 86 percent majority support employment protections for LGBT people. Moreover, 65 percent are less likely to support a candidate who opposes this protection.



• Religion is not an excuse to discriminate. Politicians in Indiana, Arkansas and a number of other states have raised the issue of faith in efforts to stop the advance of non-discrimination. As we found out in Indiana voters are having none of it. In this survey, a 56 percent majority believe small business owners should not be allowed to refuse service to someone because they are gay or lesbian, even if it violates their religious beliefs. Nearly half (46 percent), strongly oppose giving small businesses the right to discriminate, including 55 percent of white millennials.1

Conclusion
This legislation is long overdue. Non-discrimination legislation was first introduced to Congress in 1974 and has been reintroduced many times since. As early as 1977, voters believed gay people should have “equal rights” in terms of job opportunities, according to Gallup. Nearly forty years later, this community is still waiting for federal legislation fully protecting their rights. This time, they carry the conviction of an impressive majority of American voters.
Read on Corps website.

From “Jeb Bush defends McCain, but supported Swift Boat attacks against Kerry” by Jeremy Diamond and Jake Tapper:

After Donald Trump questioned Republican Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is not a veteran, quickly jumped to McCain’s defense.
“Enough with the slanderous attacks. @SenJohnMcCain and all our veterans – particularly POWs have earned our respect and admiration,” he tweeted on Saturday.
But that outrage was missing ten years ago, when a political group attacked another Vietnam veteran — then-Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee who sought to unseat Bush’s brother, the incumbent president, during the 2004 election.
Instead, Bush praised Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that lobbed attacks questioning Kerry’s service record in Vietnam — attacks McCain unequivocally criticized in 2004 as “dishonest and dishonorable.”

Here’s an excerpt from Bush’s self-righteous letter to the swiftboaters, as reported by Tapper and Diamond:

As someone who truly understands the risk of standing up for something, I simply cannot express in words how much I value their willingness to stand up against John Kerry,” Bush wrote in a letter dated January 19, 2005.

The authors note of the swift boater attacks that “All of the charges were contradicted by official military records and almost all of the men who served with Kerry came out in defense of their former crewmate, praising his courage.”
And further, “Only one of the swift boat critics served with Kerry. Kerry received several medals for his service in Vietnam, including several Purple Heart medals for injuries he sustained in combat.”
Bush should answer for his highly politicized patriotism and explain how he feels about the swift boat attacks today. Whether or not he today has the mettle to apologize for disrespecting a highly-decorated veteran will reveal much about his character and integrity.

In his Campaign for America’s Future post, “The GOP Sugar Daddies of 2016,” Terrance Heath notes “When Republicans finally choose their nominee for president, he or she will be already bought and paid for by one or more of the GOP sugar daddies of the 2016 election.” Heath has some observations about the cost of presidential campaigns and why so many Republican candidates think they can launch one nonetheless:

Getting a viable primary campaign off is so prohibitively expensive that almost none of the 15 current GOP candidates could afford to do it on their own. Fortune magazine called it a “$50 million vanity project.” That’s roughly the cost just to launch a primary campaign, and keep it going long enough to have an impact. That’s a grand total of about $750 million for the entire GOP field. This estimate may be too low, given that GOP candidates will have to spend more on media, to make themselves heard in such a crowded field.
So, why are there so many GOP candidates? We have the billionaire GOP sugar daddies of 2016 to thank for that. Since Citizens United opened the door to super PACs, which can collect unlimited donations from individuals and corporations, an influx of new Republican donors and bundlers has driven a money boom on the right.

Heath’s post is accompanied by a video clip to bring the issue into focus:

Heath provides a list of recent GOP sugar-daddies, with their income source, net worth and the surnames of Republican presidential candidates they are supporting:
Sheldon Adelson; Casino tycoon; $22.9 Billion; Christie, Rubio (Maybe)
Norman Braman; Car dealer, Philadelphia Eagles Owner; $1.88 Billion; Rubio
Harlan Crow; Real estate, Crow Holdings CEO; Hundreds of millions; Christie
Larry Ellison; Oracle founder; $54 Billion; Rubio, Paul
Foster Friess; Mutual fund financier; $350 Million; Santorum
Ken Griffin; Citadel hedge fund founder; est. $4.4 billion; Walker
David and Charles Koch; $40.7 billion each; $81.4 billion combined; Bush, Cruz, Paul, Rubio, Walker
Robert Mercer; hedge fund magnate; $23 billion; Cruz
Robert Rowling; TRT Holdings founder $5.5 billion; Cruz
So what do the Republicans’ sugar daddies get for their largess? Heath explains:

The GOP’s sugar daddies are buying influence over lawmakers, according to a study by Martin Gilens, professor of politics at Princeton University, and Benjamin I. Page, professor of decision making at Northwestern University. After examining how politicians handled 1,779 issues, Gilens and Page found that, “… economic elites stand out as quite influential – more so than any other set of actors studied here – in the making of U.S. public policy.” Giles and Page conclude: “In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.” Giles and Page echo a 2014 joint Yale/University of California at Berkeley study, which found that campaign donors are more likely than constituents to get meetings with lawmakers.
…The GOP candidates, however, all seem to be saying the same thing, because they are all appealing to the same set of billionaires who all want the same things: financial deregulation that lets them further pad their bottom line, corporate tax cuts, tax “reforms” that favor the wealthy, and so on. The GOP sugar daddies are willing to spend lots of money to get what they want. Now they can, until they have enough lawmakers in their pockets to get what they’re paying for.

No matter who the GOP nominates after the billionaire primary, the nominee’s agenda will be basically the same — policies which fatten the assets of the super-rich at the expense of the middle class. That’s a key part of the message Democrats must get across to end the Republican blockade and move America forward.

The following post comes from a Democracy Corps E-blast:
A quick headline might say, “Democrats are doing a little better with the white working class than they were in 2012,” though their vote still hugging 35 percent may give you pause. A more considered headline would tell you a big gender story. Hillary Clinton and congressional Democrats (in a named ballot) are running considerably better with white working class women, produced by a sharp pull back from the Republicans. But amazingly, Democratic gains with working class women are partially offset by losses with white working class men. With the men, Clinton is trailing Obama’s performance by 5 points.
For now, the white working class women are having their say and Clinton and the Democrats are eroding some of the Republicans’ working class firewall.

Based on a national survey of 950 likely 2016 voters conducted June 13-17, 2015 by Democracy Corps, 60 percent cell, and national post-election surveys among 3,617 2012 voters conducted by Democracy Corps in 2012.
Read at DCorps website.

From Betsy Woodruff’s Daily Beast post, “Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Just Had a (Sorta) Lovefest“:

The combative Vermont senator, who’s currently polling in second place (very distant second place, but hey, second place nonetheless) behind Clinton in the contest to be Democrats’ 2016 presidential nominee, rubbed shoulders with her Tuesday on Capitol Hill when she made a quick pit stop there to shmooze with old congressional pals.
…Several senators said Sanders joined his fellow liberals to stand and applaud the former secretary of state when she entered the room and indicated that the exchange between the two former colleagues was complimentary.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said Clinton name-checked the Vermont senator early in her remarks, giving him “real praise for carrying the Democratic flag high with a lot of excited supporters, some comment like that that was real positive right at the start of her comments.”

Sanders reportedly appreciated the compliment, affirmed his intention to run a civil campaign, even while noting that they disagreed in varying degrees on issues like the Keystone pipeline, restoring Glass-Steagal and climate change: “I don’t like negative campaigns, I’ve never run a negative ad in my life,” Bernie Sanders said. “I believe the American people are entitled to serious discussion about serious issues.”
Despite their differences, adds Woodruff, “the interactions between Sanders and Clinton in the Capitol on Tuesday indicate the pair may not campaign in the knock-down, drag-out slugfest style that dominated the 2008 Democratic primaries.” Woodruff quotes Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill’s summation of the luncheon meeting: “We were all grown-ups, we all like each other, we’re all in the same party,” We all want the same result.”
And that result begins with a blue wave on the first Tuesday of November, 2016

The following article by Brookings Senior Fellows in Governance Studies William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck, is cross-posted from Brookings:
In her economic speech in New York on Monday, Hillary Clinton did what no one thought she would do–she took on the excesses of Wall Street. We couldn’t agree with her more. It is good policy and good campaign strategy.
As the American economy has struggled to regain its footing in the wake of the great recession we’ve heard many explanations for slow growth and stagnant incomes in the 21st century American economy. High on the list are globalization and the role the information technology revolution is playing in the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and, more recently, routine service sector jobs as well.
Although the decisions we make can shape their effects, these big trends are here to stay. But another set of problems is in principle more malleable. These problems arise from the “financialization” of the American economy–problems that we have written about and which Hillary, in a bold speech, has now placed square on the 2016 agenda.
In recent years, certain incentives have become so powerful and pervasive in the private sector that they have tilted corporate decision-making in the direction of short term gains. No one set out to create this myopic system, which arose piecemeal over a period of decades. But taken together, these perverse new micro-incentives have created a macroeconomic problem–the taking of short term profits at the expense of investment in long term growth. These incentives include: the proliferation of stock buybacks and dividends, the increase in non-cash compensation, the fixation on quarterly earnings and the rise of activist investors.
The proliferation of share repurchases, we argue in a recent paper, has had numerous bad effects on investments, on wages for average workers, and on the willingness of firms to adopt a long-term perspective. The surge in non-cash compensation for CEOs has intensified these problems. In the name of better aligning managers’ incentives with the interests of their companies, it has created perverse incentives to manage earnings and to report results that diverge from actual corporate performance. It diminishes incentives to seek productive investments and to make the kinds of commitments–to research and development, for example–that will show up in the bottom line five or ten years hence, not in the next quarter’s earnings.
There is a compelling case, we conclude, for reining in both share repurchases and the use of stock awards and options to compensate managers. To this end, we propose the following steps:

• Reverse Reagan-era regulatory changes that opened the floodgates for massive stock buy-backs
• Improve disclosure practices
• Strengthen sustainability standards in 10-K reporting
• Toughen executive compensation rules
• Reform the taxation of executive compensation

We are not against having investors make a good profit but, like many in the business community itself, we have come to believe that the incentive structure today is creating a short term mindset that is detrimental to the kind of long-term growth that produces good jobs and rising wages. To re-balance our economy we must restructure the incentives that shape the decisions of CEOs and boards of directors. By reining in stock buybacks and reducing short-term equity gains from compensation packages, we have argued, we can move significantly down this road. And we should.
PDF of the Galston/Kamarch paper
Galston elaborates on Clinton’s strategy in his latest Wall St. Journal column.

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
In 2002, the so-called Neo-Cons like Dick Cheney stampeded many in Congress to vote to authorize the War in Iraq. It was a vote most of them will regret for the rest of their lives.
We are fast approaching another “Iraq War Moment.” A vote to prevent President Obama from implementing the just-announced agreement that prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon will result in one of only two outcomes: a nuclear Iran, or another major U.S. war in the Middle East.
After months and months of negotiation, the United States, five other world powers and Iran have signed an agreement that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — in exchange for the elimination of international financial sanctions.
That deal was possible because of monumental diplomatic effort. It began when the Obama Administration forged a coalition of the world’s major powers to invoke the sanctions in the first place. Then the United States persuaded those same powers to stick together until they got deal that actually cuts off all of the major pathways for Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb. Altogether an extraordinary achievement.
And remember, the agreement was achieved because the Administration successfully maintained a truly international sanctions regime that included Russia and China as well as the major European powers.
If the United States Congress derails a deal that is considered fair by the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, those international sanctions will collapse — the moderate, pro-western forces in Iran will be discredited in Iran — the hardliners in Iran will be empowered — and Iran will be free to develop a nuclear weapon. That is exactly the opposite of what opponents of the deal say they want as an outcome.
In the event that the U.S. Congress rejects the internationally negotiated agreement, we will not be able to just “toughen our sanctions” and force the Iranians to bend to our will. International sanctions were the vehicle that has brought Iran to the negotiating table. The Iranians faced sanctions from all of the world’s major economies.
If the Congress stops the deal, the United States will be blamed for its failure – not Iran — and those international sanctions will simply disappear. And if international sanctions collapse, so will our leverage with Iran.
If, on the other hand, Iran signs the deal and then cheats – it will be Iran that wears the jacket — and international action against Iran will once again be possible in order to enforce the deal’s terms.
There is, of course, one other alternative: another Middle East War. The United States could try to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capacity with a military attack. But as many military experts have attested, airstrikes will not be enough.
If the United States takes unilateral military action against Iran, it will unify the country behind the hardliners in Iranian politics. What would be necessary would be a full-blown invasion – regime change.
And that is exactly what many of the leading opponents of the nuclear deal really want.

Read more…

Behold the fruits of their labors. Just about any news-oriented web page you visit today will present for your enjoyment the belligerent mug of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, mouth agape and bellowing some half-baked thought to drag the GOP brand through the mud one more time.
But Trump’s views are not so far out of line with the rest of the Republican field of president-wannabees, just more crudely-stated. Dana Milbank takes a stab at explaining the Trump phenomenon in his Washington Post column, “Donald Trump is the monster the GOP created“:

It has been amusing to watch the brands — the PGA, NBC, Macy’s, NASCAR, Univision, Serta — flee Donald Trump after his xenophobic remarks. Who even knew The Donald had a line of mattresses featuring Cool Action Dual Effects Gel Memory Foam?
But there is one entity that can’t dump Trump, no matter how hard it tries: the GOP. The Republican Party can’t dump Trump because Trump is the Republican Party.
One big Republican donor this week floated to the Associated Press the idea of having candidates boycott debates if the tycoon is onstage. Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham and other candidates have lined up to say, as Rick Perry put it, that “Donald Trump does not represent the Republican Party.”
But Trump has merely held up a mirror to the GOP. The man, long experience has shown, believes in nothing other than himself. He has, conveniently, selected the precise basket of issues that Republicans want to hear about — or at least a significant proportion of Republican primary voters. He may be saying things more colorfully than others when he talks about Mexico sending rapists across the border, but his views show that, far from being an outlier, he is hitting all the erogenous zones of the GOP electorate.
Anti-immigrant? Against Common Core education standards? For repealing Obamacare? Against same-sex marriage? Antiabortion? Anti-tax? Anti-China? Virulent in questioning President Obama’s legitimacy? Check, check, check, check, check, check, check and check.

But Milbank then recounts Trump’s more progressive views back in 1999, when Milbank interviewed him on a flight:

I flew on his 727 with the winged “T” on the tail and the mirrored headboard on the bed, and I learned all about his prospective platform: progressive on social issues such as gays in the military, for campaign finance reform and universal health care, in favor of more regulation, opposed to investing Social Security money in the stock market. Most of all, he preached tolerance — contrasting himself with Pat Buchanan, his rival for the nomination, who had made statements considered anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant.
…Trump back then issued a statement saying he hates intolerance because in New York, “a town with different races, religions and peoples, I have learned to work with my brother man.” I accompanied him as he underscored the point by touring the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

Quite a contrast from Trump 2015, who has viciously disparaged Mexican immigrant workers, whose construction labors have helped make him filthy rich, as Milbank points out. But Trump is not the lone immigrant worker/Latino-basher in his party. Far from it:

…Scott Walker talks about self-deportation, Graham talks about ending birthright citizenship, Ben Carson blames illegal immigrants in part for the measles outbreak, Rand Paul describes as lawbreakers those who were brought to the United States illegally as children, and even relatively moderate candidates such as Bush and Marco Rubio have hardened their immigration positions. Ted Cruz actually praised Trump.
Trump’s position also closely follows those that came from Arizona in 2010 when then-Gov. Jan Brewer and other Republicans attempted an immigration crackdown. They spoke about illegal immigrants on the border as a source of beheadings, kidnappings and police killings.

Nor are Trump’s other positions so dissimilar from those of his fellow GOP candidates

..The mogul’s broader basket of issues is also in tune with those of a slate of candidates who have compared homosexuality to alcoholism (Perry), likened union protesters to the Islamic State (Walker) and proposed elections for Supreme Court justices (Cruz), and who virtually all oppose same-sex marriage and action on climate change.

Further adds Milbank, “The previously tolerant Trump may be a phony, but he’s no dope: He recognized that, in the fragmented Republican field, his name recognition would take him far if he merely voiced, in his bombastic style, the positions GOP voters craved…It worked. Trump placed second in national polls by Fox News and CNN, virtually guaranteeing him a place in the first debate, on Aug. 6 — unless the GOP persuades Fox News, the host, to dump Trump.”
“That would be hard to justify,” concludes Milbank. “Trump may be a monster, but he’s the monster Republicans created.”

So “Is the overwhelming advantage that Democrats appear to be building among Latinos durable? Or could it prove far more ephemeral than it appears?” Greg Sargent addresses the question at The Plum Line and observes”

…Can Democrats count on the 2016 GOP presidential ticket re-running Mitt Romney’s historically bad performance among Latino voters? Or could a Jeb Bush (or, less likely in my view, Marco Rubio) general election candidacy whittle away at the Dem edge among those voters and reverse gains that had seemed to be hardening? Folks with long memories will recall that George W. Bush successfully pulled that reversal off in 2000. Couldn’t that happen again?…This is one of the big questions of 2016, and its answer could be key to the campaign’s outcome.”

Thanks, in part, to recent Repubican bungling and indecision, Sargent sees Democrats in good position to win a healthy majority of Latino voters in 2016.

The case for Dem optimism has been fortified by Donald Trump, who in recent days has been spraying inflammatory quotes about immigrants around like a garden sprinkler. It’s true that a number of GOP candidates have condemned his remarks. But as Michael Gerson details, Republicans still appear locked in a debate over the fundamental underlying question of whether their route to the White House lies in pumping up the white vote in the Rust Belt (a strategy perhaps foreshadowed by Scott Walker’s move to the right on immigration) or in broadening their appeal beyond their demographic comfort zone (a strategy that Jeb Bush has urged on the party).
An additional reason for Dem optimism: Some Republicans are reportedly skeptical that the party should bother focusing its energy on nominating a candidate who might appeal to Latinos, on the grounds that those voters agree with Democrats on many issues, so being pro-immigration reform (as Jeb is) won’t be enough anyway

Sargent cautions, however, that there is a possible GOP presidential campaign ticket which might take a big enough bite out of the Democrats’ edge — “a GOP ticket that includes Bush and Nevada governor Brian Sandoval as vice president.” Further, adds Sargent, “Sandoval won a third of the Latino vote in his 2010 race, despite striking a hard-ish line on immigration, from which he has since backed off. Sandoval is relatively young. A Bush-Sandoval ticket would be led by a man with a Mexican wife and Latino-American children, and backed up by a man of Mexican descent…”
Sargent quotes progressive political strategist Simon Rosenberg:

“While the Democratic advantage today is significant, what we don’t know is what happens with an historically Hispanic and Spanish friendly GOP ticket of, let’s say, Bush and Sandoval. One Bush already used a smart Hispanic strategy to get to the White House. Given that, Democrats should be anything but confident and complacent right now. They need to be doing more, now, to make it harder for any GOP ticket to dig out of the hole Trump and others have dug for the GOP.”

Always wise to prepare for any game-changers. For now, however, Sargent concludes, “So, yes, perhaps Republicans have moved so far to the right on immigration that the party can’t conceivably re-run the 2000 Bush immigration strategy, or perhaps even reconstituting that strategy wouldn’t be enough to reverse GOP losses among Latinos at this point.”

From Jonathan Allen’s post, “Confessions of a Clinton reporter: The media’s 5 unspoken rules for covering Hillary” at Vox.com:

The Clinton rules are driven by reporters’ and editors’ desire to score the ultimate prize in contemporary journalism: the scoop that brings down Hillary Clinton and her family’s political empire. At least in that way, Republicans and the media have a common interest.
I understand these dynamics well, having co-written a book that demonstrated how Bill and Hillary Clinton used Hillary’s time at State to build the family political operation and set up for their fourth presidential campaign. That is to say, I’ve done a lot of research about the Clintons’ relationship with the media, and experienced it firsthand. As an author, I felt that I owed it to myself and the reader to report, investigate, and write with the same mix of curiosity, skepticism, rigor, and compassion that I would use with any other subject. I wanted to sell books, of course. But the easier way to do that — proven over time — is to write as though the Clintons are the purest form of evil. The same holds for daily reporting. Want to drive traffic to a website? Write something nasty about a Clinton, particularly Hillary.
As a reporter, I get sucked into playing by the Clinton rules. This is what I’ve seen in my colleagues, and in myself.

Quite an extraordinary admission, that. Here are the five “rules”:

Read more…