https://twitter.com/stigabell/status/1146786476769914880

Politico

The White House and Republican National Committee have spent the past week scrambling to distribute VIP tickets to President Donald Trump’s Fourth of July speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Now, White House officials and allies are wringing their hands over the risk of the hastily arranged event morphing into Trump’s Inauguration 2.0, in which the size of the crowd and the ensuing media coverage do not meet the president’s own outsized expectations for the event.

They started this too late and everyone has plans already,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor and CEO of the drilling services company Canary, LLC. “Everyone will be there in spirit, but in reality, people planned their July 4th activities weeks ago.”

Less than 36 hours before the event, White House aides were crafting Trump’s speech, while administration and RNC officials finalized the guest lists.

When I was in Afghanistan, I served alongside people from every conceivable background. People who came from the coasts and the heartland, from cities and from farms—people who held beliefs as diverse as our great nation. Some of us had almost nothing in common except the simple fact of being American and in uniform. But the men and women who got in my vehicle didn’t care if I was a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent. They just wanted to get home safe, like I did.

It was a life-changing experience, and that sense of connection to others is one that young Americans should be able to gain without having to go to war. I believe this can be achieved through national service.

I am proposing A New Call to Service, a plan to dramatically expand service opportunities across the country.

By shaping a new generation bonded by the experience of serving, it will not only deliver good work but also help repair the social fabric in our nation.

Under this plan, we will immediately triple service opportunities from 75,000 to 250,000, targeted towards America’s high school graduates, community college, and vocational students. Eventually, the goal is to expand out-of-state and international service options and quadruple service opportunities—so that they’re available to one million high school graduates by 2026—across initiatives supported by the leadership of a national Chief Service Officer.

Read more on my policy proposal here: www.peteforamerica.com/national-service-plan

Our plan builds on our country’s tradition of national service, which is neither new nor partisan. Until the current administration, every president since 1960 has called upon us to serve. JFK launched the Peace Corps as he challenged us to ask what we could do for our country, George H.W. Bush championed A Thousand Points of Light, and Barack Obama expanded AmeriCorps with the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. My plan—which I’m calling ‘A New Call to Service’—builds upon this tradition to expand service opportunities for Americans.

This announcement is just the beginning. On the trail, we will continue to meet with local service leaders on our campaign stops, and in the coming months we hope you will join us in a National Day of Service, to further root our campaign in an ethos of service.

Tomorrow is our Independence Day. But what has always made America remarkable is not our independence but our interdependence. By strengthening connections between us, we can shape a new generation of America’s youth—linked by mutual experiences with service, aware of the common values that bind us as Americans, and better prepared to come as informed citizens to the table of our democracy.

Pete

Players Tribune

(3) O.K. so now that that’s out of the way, I’ll answer The Question. The one that’s probably most on your mind. And by that I mean: What’s it like to have the literal President of the literal United States (of literal America) go Full Adolescent Boy on your girlfriend? Hmm. Well… it’s WEIRD. And I’d say I actually had a pretty standard reaction to it: which was to freak out a little.

That’s one thing that you kind of have to know about me and Megan: our politics are similar — after we won the WNBA title in Seattle last season, no way were we going to the (f*cking) White House! — but our dispositions are not. And as we’ve been talking through a lot of this “stuff,” as it’s been happening to her, you know, I’ll be honest here….. some of it scares the sh*t out of me!!

I mean, some of it is kind of funny….. but like in a REALLY? REALLY? THIS GUY??? kind of way. Like, dude — there’s nothing better demanding your attention?? It would be ridiculous to the point of laughter, if it wasn’t so gross. (And if his legislations and policies weren’t ruining the lives of so many innocent people.) And then what’s legitimately scary, I guess, is like….. how it’s not just his tweets. Because now suddenly you’ve got all these MAGA peeps getting hostile in your mentions. And you’ve got all these crazy blogs writing terrible things about this person you care so much about. And now they’re doing takedowns of Megan on Fox News, and who knows whatever else. It’s like an out-of-body experience, really — that’s how I’d describe it. That’s how it was for me.

Source: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

MADISON - A panel of federal judges unanimously threw out Wisconsin's gerrymandering case Tuesday and said it would decide later whether taxpayers should be able to recover some of their legal fees from those who sued the state.

The panel of three judges issued its decision five days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that federal courts can't consider allegations that election maps unfairly favor one political party over another.

The high court's decision came from cases in North Carolina and Maryland but made plain that Wisconsin's long-running case would be tossed.

Read more: http://amp.jsonline.com/amp/1634244001

CNN

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is in trouble.

While much of the attention in post-debate polling has focused on the drop of former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders' polling looks far worse. Sanders' Iowa and national polls are quite weak for someone with near universal name recognition.

Sanders was at just 14% in CNN's latest national poll. That's down from 18% in our last poll. As important, Sanders is now running behind California Sen. Kamala Harris (17%) and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (15%).These are candidates who have lower name recognition than he does.

It's not just the CNN poll, either. Sanders doesn't look much better in Quinnipiac's latest poll, which puts him at 13%.

Politico

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s senior team urged him last month to withdraw from the presidential race gracefully and run for Colorado’s Senate seat or pursue other opportunities, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

The source said that the campaign only has about 13,000 donors, making it almost impossible to qualify for the next round of presidential debates in the fall. The campaign also only raised just over $1 million in the second quarter — about what he raised in the first 48 hours of his candidacy — and will likely run out of money completely in about a month.

At least five staffers have left or are leaving Hickenlooper’s struggling operation, including his campaign manager, communications director, digital director and finance director. Hickenlooper named a new campaign manager on Monday night.

Hickenlooper publicly blamed his former staff Tuesday for his failure to gain traction in the crowded Democratic primary.

The Guardian

Business groups have expressed anger after Jeremy Hunt said he would willingly tell people whose companies went bust after a no-deal Brexit that their sacrifice had been necessary.

In a notable escalation of his rhetoric on Brexit, the foreign secretary, who is trailing Boris Johnson in the Conservative leadership election, also said he would actively pursue no deal if a new departure plan looked impossible by the start of October – less than 10 weeks after the new prime minister takes office.

Hunt’s shift towards the harder language associated with Johnson, who has promised to deliver Brexit by 31 October “do or die”, has alarmed some fellow Conservatives. A senior party source said it was “shocking to hear an allegedly sensible politician talk so frivolously about the livelihoods of millions of people”.

Throughout the leadership campaign Hunt has stressed the potential damage from a no-deal departure, saying he would only pursue it if there was no other way to deliver

I also don’t like Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, John Hickenlooper or any of the other presidential candidates. Or politicians in general. . Bottom line, unless it one of the handful of politicos I know personally, “like” is not how I describe my engagement with them. I respect their backgrounds and abilities, and appreciate the efforts they make in their campaigns and in office. But I don’t have an emotional connection to them. I try, as objectively as possible, to evaluate their ability to serve in office, and their ability to win an election. And if I see something critical about a candidate I support, I evaluate it dispassionately and decide if my support deserves to be removed in favor of someone else. That’s why I never cry “hit job” if someone here posts something negative about someone I support, because I’m not tethered to someone simply because they’re “mine”. If an issue is serious enough to get brought now, our candidates are better off dealing with it now, because the Republicans will certainly bring it up later. And I want to help whichever candidate is best able to take on what the Republicans will throw out.