Exponentially More Problems

Graham Platner creates so many problems for Democrats, it's hard to know where to start

All weekend🗳️: They will count (and maybe find) ballots all weekend in California

• Good news👍: Finally, the country is focused on a state (and Democratic Party) and figured out how to legalize cheating

  • Think about it💭: Google, Apple, self-driving cars all came out of California, but it takes them two weeks to count ballots

• Legal cheating👀: Tonight, we will take you through the rules that guarantee Democrats will never lose power.

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Platner Problems‼️

😬Graham Platner creates so many problems for Democrats, it’s hard to know where to start

• 🤦They thought they would win Maine easily — now it’s a disaster

• ❗Every Democrat is having to answer for a Nazi tattoo-wearing, rape enthusiast, accused girlfriend beater, racist — oh, and it’s only June

  • Must-read 📰: The National Review headlines “The Graham Platner Candidacy Keeps Getting Worse”

• Look forward ▶️: It’s only June — the above is a non-exhaustive list of Platner’s negative attributes –- more will come out, trust me.

📰The Washington Post writes, “As scandals follow Graham Platner, Democrats are losing patience”

• Democrats are “frustrated” says The Washington Post — they have nobody to blame but themselves

• Basic🤦: Anybody with a Nazi tattoo has more issues, but they refused to push him out when they could because winning was more important.

  • Look back🔙: The tweets and soundbites from Democrats saying all women must be believed during Brett Kavanaugh’s hearings who now support Planter despite The New York Times story with new damning revelations is politics at its best

    • Sen. Whitehouse, D-R.I., calls allegations of Platner’s abuse “a lot of nothing” — eight years after grilling Kavanaugh about yearbook jokes

• Tonight: Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., rallies with Platner — here was his tweet in 2018 on Kavanaugh’s hearings:

  • “I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I believe Deborah Ramirez. I believe Anita Hill. Brett Kavanaugh should not be on the Supreme Court.”

• ‼️Now, one of the accusers in The New York Times story says the Times downplayed her allegations and double-crossed her, writing:

  • “After the story went up I began to ask them … Why does it say “nobody could corroborate” when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate? Why did they include an out of context quote…Where were the screenshots they’d said they would use?...The editors said it was too much, they explained.

• 🗳️Maine’s primary is Tuesday — Platner will almost certainly win, and Democrats are stuck with him.

Good read📰: The National Review headlines, “It Will Be Hard for Democrats to Replace Graham Platner”

• Fair question❓: Will the party of protecting democracy push out someone duly elected in a primary?

• 😬It’s so bad that Platner lost Politico’s playbook — that is a lagging indicator

  • 📰Politico headlines “Dems fear all pain and no Maine”

  • Plus➕: Politico talks to politicos — it means Democrats inside D.C. are terrified

Worst part🚨: All of the above isn’t the worst Platner problem for Democrats — Democrats only win this November if they make the election a referendum on Donald Trump.

• 🤷Platner gives every Republican a foil to say you really want the party that supports a Nazi-tattooed, (accused) girlfriend beater

📱Our buddy Chris Cillizza writes: “I don’t know if Graham Platner’s candidacy survives these latest allegations in the New York Times. It may well do so. But I do find it the height of hypocrisy that the same Democrats who said that we need to believe all women are rushing to discredit the story because it quotes a GOP operative who dated Platner in the 2010s. I mean, how do they square that?

• MS NOW found a few people who say yes!

  • Watch

Watch tonight📺: Caroline Sunshine joins with a contrarian view.

• Caroline defends Platner despite the new allegations, saying he “gets to stay”

  • Really Caroline? Call me cynical, but I think Republicans want Platner to stay because he will be easy to beat

• Plus➕: We have Chris Cillizza and Democrat Madeline Summerville

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D-Day — The Heroes Are Gone‼️

🙏Saturday is the 82nd anniversary of D-Day – there is not much I can add to the awe we should all feel for those who landed in France that day to free a nation.

‼️An 18-year-old who stormed the beaches of Normandy in 1944 is around 100 years old today.

• Why it matters❗: There are fewer and fewer people to teach us lessons in leadership and sacrifice from America’s greatest generation

• Look back🔙: 82 years ago, then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed 160,000 allied troops as they prepared to take part in what we call today D-Day

  • Eisenhower: “Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the allied expeditionary force. You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you, the hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you.

• 📝Eisenhower wrote an “in case of failure” message that he threw in the trash, writing:

  • Eisenhower: “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

Today📅: The Greatest Generation is almost gone — around 45,000 WWII veterans remain

• We are losing their stories and lessons.

Must read📰: The National Review headlines, “A D-Day Model of Leadership America Should Seek to Follow,” writing:

• “Let’s also take the occasion to ask something more of ourselves, to ask that, as citizens, we insist on leaders whose character might combine strength with humility, as exemplified by General Eisenhower as he prepared himself to acknowledge — and to take responsibility for — what would have become the war’s greatest failure. As we honor the anniversary of D-Day, we might also see in his example the model of leadership that might see us through the 250 years to come.”

Watch tonight📺: Historian Douglas Brinkley

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Give Me a Break!

🗣️Former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the war in Iran “is very much turning into Trump’s Vietnam”

• 🤦Really? The Vietnam War lasted 12 years — this conflict has only been a little over 12 weeks.

  • We are not in a ground war.

  • We aren’t even in a traditional war right now.

• Be real‼️: For 10 years in Vietnam, we lost an average of 10 Americans a day, for nearly 59,000 total killed in action.

• We’ve lost 13 American service members since the start of the war in Iran — and yes, it’s very tragic — but this is not Vietnam.

  • Must read📰: The Wall Street Journal writes, “Trump Tells Aides He Won’t Resume All-out War with Iran Unless U.S. Troops Are Killed”

Warning⚠️: Allowing political hyperbole to get in the way of rational military thinking may be the last straw of danger in American politics.

• This is the textbook definition of absurd hyperbole because it’s bad for Trump

Look back🔙: Listen to Walter Cronkite, former host of CBS Evening News, in 1968 on Vietnam

• Cronkite: “For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate…But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.”

Watch tonight2️⃣: Admiral Mike Hewitt on the strategic reality.

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Democrats Keep Giving Trump a Hand

🤷The best thing Donald Trump has going for him is Democrats.

✈️President Trump traveled to Wisconsin today to pitch the economy and his agricultural policies to farmers.

• 💰He has economic problems that he’s trying to figure out what to do:

  • 📈 Yes, the stock market is near record highs — plus, a high job report came out today.

    • “U.S. employers added 172,000 jobs in May, an unexpectedly strong showing,” writes The Washington Post

  • But‼️: U.S. farmers are being hit with high costs — total costs up 20-40% — due to the war in Iran

    • Fuel and Diesel up 46%

    • Fertilizer up 30+%

    • Shipping costs 3 times higher

• 🤦Yet Democrats may once again blow a chance by picking Francesca Hong an ultra-progressive, as the Democratic governor’s candidate in the state.

  • 👎Her policy proposals would make Fidel Castro proud

    • This is not where the American people are

    • America is not a far-left country — it’s a center, center-right country, especially values-wise.

• Policy📃: Democrats’ plan is to tax the rich and have government programs give it to everybody else.

  • Socialism does not work

• Quick history⌛: The progressive Democrats economic plan was the Build Back Better Act —

  • The Green New Deal

  • The Inflation Reduction Act

    • All these were disastrous

Flip side 🔄: The one problem that Republicans and Democrats both have with the economy is how unfair things are.

• 🏀Tickets for the NBA Finals are up to $176,000

  • We’re in a K-shape economy — the rich keep getting richer, and everyone else keeps falling behind

• Good read📰: The Wall Street Journal headlines: “The Wall Street Mania Pushing Knicks Tickets to $176,000”

Can only dream💭: Imagine if there was a candidate who was talking about the economy in a way that made sense to traditional valued Americans, because most Americans don’t believe in

Tonight📺: Devin Remiker, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party

• Plus➕: NewsNations Libbey Dean on the White House’s attempt to make this election a referendum on Democrats