Good morning! Here’s your daily digest of money-in-politics news and the headlines of the day, compiled by BillMoyers.com’s John Light. (You can sign up to receive Morning Reads daily in your inbox!)
In the wee small hours –> Early this morning, by a vote of 64-35, the US Senate passed the two-year budget deal and raising of the debt limit “after overcoming objections from conservative senators, including presidential candidates Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), that forced a rare series of votes at 1 a.m.” The Washington Post reports that President Obama has until Tuesday to sign.
Revolt? –> Politico claims that Republican presidential candidates — the “outsiders” and “insiders” alike — are uniting in rebellion against the Republican National Committee. Alex Isenstadt reports: “On Thursday, many of the campaigns told POLITICO that the RNC, which has taken a greater role in the 2016 debate process than in previous election cycles, had failed to take their concerns into account. It was time, top aides to at least half a dozen of the candidates agreed, to begin discussing among themselves how the next debates should be structured and not leave it up to the RNC and television networks.”
Investigate Exxon! –> Hillary Clinton is joining Bernie Sanders and Marty O’Malley, as well as a number of Democratic legislators, in calling for Congress to investigate the oil and gas giant. The demands come in the wake of investigative reports that the company was well aware of the dangers posed by climate change long before the public, but chose to mislead us. Katherine Bagley reports for InsideClimate News.
Refugee disaster continues –> An overloaded boat capsized off the Greek island of Lesbos yesterday; 280 went into the water. Five children died and 34 remain missing. Michele Kambas and Angeliki Koutantou report for Reuters that it is “one of the largest maritime disasters since a massive refugee influx began this year.”
Finally at the table –> The BBC reports, “The first talks bringing together all foreign powers backing rival sides in Syria’s civil war have opened.” The participants, including the US, Russia and Iran, are meeting in Vienna in an attempt to find a way forward.
About those “softballs” –> At The Nation, Joshua Holland questions Ted Cruz’s claim at Wednesday’s GOP debate that CNN lobbed “softball questions” during the first Democratic debate. Baloney, says Holland: “The tough questions that marked the Democratic debate were immediately forgotten when the Republican candidates started working the referees with cries of media bias. Which might be expected, given that it reinforced one of the most enduring conspiracy theories in American politics: that members of the media–like academics and scientists–are hopelessly biased against Republicans.”
Forget the punditry –> Google Trends is probably a better tool than most for determining which candidates America is interested in, writes AJ Vicens at Mother Jones. Trump is still the topic of most searches, but one candidate from the “kids table” is getting a lot of attention: Lindsey Graham.
Schoolkids pay the price for “Success” –> Kate Taylor reports for The New York Times that one of the most prominent charter schools, Success Academy, made lists of disruptive children, some as young as six, and sought to push them to leave and attend other schools. Critics have long argued that some charter schools use tactics like this to keep their success rates higher than those of public schools.
Flee the Bern –> Centrist Democratic groups like Third Way are alarmed by Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric and poll numbers, and are warning their members to distance themselves. They’re also worried about the effect he could have pushing Clinton left. Sam Stein reports for The Huffington Post.
FEC punts –> We were excited yesterday about what might come out of the FEC’s discussion of super PACs. But the agency delayed. Eric Lichtblau at the NYT: “The inaction was not surprising for a commission often gridlocked by partisan divisions. Still, it frustrated Democratic lawyers, who had asked the commission last month for an ’emergency’ ruling on whether a dozen fund-raising tactics used by super PACs and politicians should be considered legal. Republican commissioners said Thursday that they wanted more time to study the issue; the matter was rescheduled for a Nov. 10 vote.”
China ends “one-child” policy –> About one-third of China’s population will now be allowed two children. Adam Pasick writes at The Atlantic that doing so will do a lot of good for China’s economy, but further tax its natural resources.
Put him out of his misery –> Moyers & Company guest Marty Kaplan blogs at The Huffington Post: “GOP Donors to Euthanize Jeb Bush.”
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