When his text messages to a woman not his wife leaked last week, Cal Cunningham, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, was immediately thrust into the time-honored cycle of shame, ridicule, evasiveness, and public apology that comes with political scandal. But there was an odd addition to that cycle this time around: profit. As Cunningham’s texts—which included racy gems such as “I kiss back, a lot”—made their way around Twitter and fueled Republican attacks, a number of people responded to the revelations by immediately opening their wallets and forking over cash to the guy who used the phrase […]
Senate Republicans
HOUSTON – Texas Democrats are planning to take Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) to federal court over his controversial move on Thursday to shutter locations across the state where voters can drop off their mail-in ballots to be counted for the general election. “We’re in a big war right now with the state of Texas,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, told The Daily Beast. “We’re probably going to be filing suit on that in the next day or so.” Abbott announced Thursday that effective immediately until the Nov. 3 election, each county in Texas can only operate one […]
The rest of the country may have moved on to the Supreme Court fight at hand, but on Wednesday night, Samantha Bee still had something to say about the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “This week, we, like everyone, are mourning the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” she began. “Ginsburg fought tirelessly for women’s equality and civil rights throughout her career, including more than 27 years on the Supreme Court. On behalf of the entire staff of Full Frontal, I’d like to say fuuuuuuuuuck.” Bee aimed to honor Ginsburg as more than “just a meme your Aunt Bev cross-stitched on […]
One week after Election Day, the Supreme Court is set to hear the latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act—and a newly confirmed conservative justice could easily usher in a decision that overturns the sweeping health-care law once and for all. Democrats might not have the power to stop President Donald Trump’s nominee to the court from being seated before it hears that case on Nov. 10. But in the meantime, they’re working to make sure Republicans who vote for the president’s pick are tagged with the painful politics of health care. But if Republicans are at all concerned about […]
After taking the summer off and hosting the virtual Emmy Awards on Sunday, Jimmy Kimmel is back in his Hollywood theater this week. And the late-night host has a theory about why the Republican Party is so eager to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the 2020 election. Kimmel began his monologue on Tuesday by recognizing National Voter Registration Day. “If you don’t register, you can’t vote,” he told viewers. “And if you don’t vote, you won’t get a sticker. And also, there’s a psychotic individual in the White House who could use some removing right now.” “It’s hard […]
Appearing before angry members of Congress for the first time, the new head of the U.S. Postal Service was forced to personally state the obvious: that the operational changes he recently implemented did, in fact, lead to the serious delivery delays and other issues that have exasperated people nationwide. But Postmaster General Louis DeJoy insisted on Friday that in no way would his designs on the USPS jeopardize Americans’ reliable access to the mail in a year of a pandemic and a pivotal election. Against the backdrop of President Trump’s repeated attacks on the USPS and the process of mail-in voting—which […]
Alaska has never been considered a battleground state on the national level: Since becoming a state in 1959, its three electoral votes have gone to a Democrat only once, in 1964. Alaska’s single U.S. House member, Rep. Don Young, has been in office for all but 15 years of Alaska’s entire history as a state. At least one of its Senate seats has been represented by a Republican, either the late Sen. Ted Stevens or someone with the last name Murkowski, since 1968. Its most notable figure ever on the national political stage was a certain “hockey mom” turned governor turned […]
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) has provided information to federal law enforcement and financial authorities about the sales of millions of dollars of stock owned by her and her husband in the wake of a closed-door Senate briefing on the coronavirus in January, Loeffler’s office said on Thursday. Loeffler and her husband, New York Stock Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher, unloaded millions in equities in the weeks after that briefing, as U.S. stock markets tanked, even as the two acquired a stake in a popular teleconferencing company whose stock has increased in value since that purchase. The Daily Beast first reported those transactions […]
Montana Senate President Scott Sales was already worried that Gov. Steve Bullock would be a tough challenge to Sen. Steve Daines’ re-election chances. Then the coronavirus shut down the country. Now, after weeks of the Democratic governor being able to dominate media coverage as he leads the state through the pandemic and into a reopening process, it isn’t lost on Sales that Bullock is getting a “backdrop of credibility,” as he’s seen by the public with other officials. And that could mean trouble for GOP hopes of keeping control of the U.S. Senate come November. “I think the coronavirus thing has […]
Even a global pandemic and economic crisis isn’t enough to break President Trump’s perception of the Democratic House as a den of haters and losers who care more about hurting him than about helping the American public. Asked on Tuesday why he wasn’t permitting members of his coronavirus task force to testify in front of the House, Trump responded that the chamber is a “set-up” that’s full of “Trump haters.” “They,” said Trump, “frankly, want our situation to be unsuccessful, which means death.” It was a remarkable bit of open political retaliation that not only undercut the White House’s official line—that […]