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Kudos to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.



House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) offered the above map in a tweet on Friday afternoon, accompanied by the text that appears above and below it:

“63 million Americans put President Trump in office. Now 231 Washington Democrats are trying to reverse the results of the 2016 election.”
This is a spectacularly bad defense against the impeachment inquiry, for eight immediately obvious reasons.

First, while it is true that President Trump won (almost) 63 million votes in the 2016 election, his opponent, Hillary Clinton, won (almost) 66 million votes. McCarthy is arguing that the will of those 63 million votes is untouchable, ignoring the immediate and obvious follow-up question.

After Thursday’s vote formalizing the impeachment inquiry, in fact, McCarthy criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “It should not be Nancy Pelosi and a small group of people that she selects that get to determine who is going to be our president,” he said.

There is at least some unintentional irony in that comment.

Second, that exhaustively discussed popular-vote discrepancy reveals one of the quirks of the Republican argument about impeachment. Impeachment, many have argued, is an attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It is, they argue in essence, a quirk of the Constitution that Democrats hope to use to throw out a democratic vote. Except, of course, that the election of the president through the electoral college is itself a quirk of the Constitution, one that resulted in Trump’s presidency in the first place.

Third, calling the 231 Democrats who voted for the impeachment inquiry “Washington Democrats” is like calling McCarthy himself a “Washington Republican.” There are only seven literal “Washington Democrats” — the seven Democrats who represent districts in the state of Washington. (There is also a “Washington Democrat” who represents the District, but she doesn’t get a vote.)

Those 231 Democrats — and the 194 Republicans who opposed the inquiry — instead represent millions of Americans in hundreds of districts across the country, just as McCarthy himself represents a big chunk of Southern California. McCarthy is either arguing against the importance of representative democracy (and his own job) or he’s just playing rhetorical games.

Fourth, that map is terrible. It is terrible.

It is terrible primarily because all maps that purport to show popular will through a county-level map of presidential results are terrible. In each case, they substitute acreage for ballots cast, rendering the millions of votes in Chicago and New York to tiny specks while focusing instead on the great open plains of Nebraska.

Here’s how I put it one month ago when Trump shared a similar map with a similar point:

“Those red counties in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, for example, are home to 1.6 million 2016 voters — fewer than half of the number of voters in Los Angeles County. Trump won 1 million votes in those states, beating Hillary Clinton by a 580,000-vote margin. In Los Angeles, Clinton beat Trump by 1.7 million votes.”
“Yet those four states are 83 times the size of Los Angeles County in area. And, therefore, they occupy 83 times as much space on the map as L.A., despite being the home of half as many voters.”
It’s just inherently (and intentionally) misleading.

Fifth, this map and its annotations are actually worse than the Trump map was.

In the McCarthy map, Democratic counties just vanish — whoosh. There’s no red America and blue America, just red America and blue “Washington Democrats.” It’s a wonderfully lazy bit of rhetoric that allows expanses of land to represent Trump’s support but insists that Trump’s opposition be filtered through their elected representatives.

What about those congressional districts that voted for Trump but are now represented by Democrats, several dozen of whom backed the impeachment inquiry? The land that makes up those districts is noble, bright red and a symbol of wholesome America, but the members of the House they elected are devious toads rummaging around on Capitol Hill.

Sixth, McCarthy’s map doesn’t even make sense.

Trump won more than 2,600 counties in 2016, more than five times the number of counties Clinton won. But neither candidate won 100 percent of the vote in each county. In each county, there were people who voted for the candidate who lost.

In other words, McCarthy’s not only whooshing away the Democrats in those blue (now white) counties — he’s also whooshing away the more than 20 million Trump voters who live in Clinton counties. They, according to his bad map, aren’t part of the “people that put President Trump in the White House.” Meanwhile, the more than 20 million Clinton voters who live in the counties Trump won are. McCarthy’s sloppy map labels all those Democratic voters as having put Trump in the White House.

Seventh, it wasn’t all those red counties that put Trump in the White House. Voters in Minnesota, Oregon and New York who voted for Trump didn’t help put him in the White House at all! Their votes were wasted, tossed in the garbage as soon as the electoral college got together to cast its ballots.

But more importantly: Eighth, most of the votes in most of the counties shown above were superfluous. It was, instead, 78,000 voters in three states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — who gave Trump the electoral vote margin he needed to win. The 3,860 votes Trump got in Millard County, Utah, show up prominently on McCarthy’s map, since the county is about 6,600 square miles. But they didn’t win Trump the state, much less the White House.

The real problem McCarthy faces is that his party hasn’t yet come up with any effective defenses against the substantive allegations Trump faces. Instead we’re left with things like this, red-saturated maps presented as aha!-attempt memes.

Maps that might someday be used as examples of the worst and laziest political rhetoric.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) offered the above map in a tweet on Friday afternoon, accompanied by the text that appears above and below it:

“63 million Americans put President Trump in office. Now 231 Washington Democrats are trying to reverse the results of the 2016 election.”
This is a spectacularly bad defense against the impeachment inquiry, for eight immediately obvious reasons.

First, while it is true that President Trump won (almost) 63 million votes in the 2016 election, his opponent, Hillary Clinton, won (almost) 66 million votes. McCarthy is arguing that the will of those 63 million votes is untouchable, ignoring the immediate and obvious follow-up question.

After Thursday’s vote formalizing the impeachment inquiry, in fact, McCarthy criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “It should not be Nancy Pelosi and a small group of people that she selects that get to determine who is going to be our president,” he said.

There is at least some unintentional irony in that comment.

Second, that exhaustively discussed popular-vote discrepancy reveals one of the quirks of the Republican argument about impeachment. Impeachment, many have argued, is an attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It is, they argue in essence, a quirk of the Constitution that Democrats hope to use to throw out a democratic vote. Except, of course, that the election of the president through the electoral college is itself a quirk of the Constitution, one that resulted in Trump’s presidency in the first place.

Third, calling the 231 Democrats who voted for the impeachment inquiry “Washington Democrats” is like calling McCarthy himself a “Washington Republican.” There are only seven literal “Washington Democrats” — the seven Democrats who represent districts in the state of Washington. (There is also a “Washington Democrat” who represents the District, but she doesn’t get a vote.)

Those 231 Democrats — and the 194 Republicans who opposed the inquiry — instead represent millions of Americans in hundreds of districts across the country, just as McCarthy himself represents a big chunk of Southern California. McCarthy is either arguing against the importance of representative democracy (and his own job) or he’s just playing rhetorical games.

Fourth, that map is terrible. It is terrible.

It is terrible primarily because all maps that purport to show popular will through a county-level map of presidential results are terrible. In each case, they substitute acreage for ballots cast, rendering the millions of votes in Chicago and New York to tiny specks while focusing instead on the great open plains of Nebraska.

Here’s how I put it one month ago when Trump shared a similar map with a similar point:

“Those red counties in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, for example, are home to 1.6 million 2016 voters — fewer than half of the number of voters in Los Angeles County. Trump won 1 million votes in those states, beating Hillary Clinton by a 580,000-vote margin. In Los Angeles, Clinton beat Trump by 1.7 million votes.”
“Yet those four states are 83 times the size of Los Angeles County in area. And, therefore, they occupy 83 times as much space on the map as L.A., despite being the home of half as many voters.”
It’s just inherently (and intentionally) misleading.

Fifth, this map and its annotations are actually worse than the Trump map was.

In the McCarthy map, Democratic counties just vanish — whoosh. There’s no red America and blue America, just red America and blue “Washington Democrats.” It’s a wonderfully lazy bit of rhetoric that allows expanses of land to represent Trump’s support but insists that Trump’s opposition be filtered through their elected representatives.

What about those congressional districts that voted for Trump but are now represented by Democrats, several dozen of whom backed the impeachment inquiry? The land that makes up those districts is noble, bright red and a symbol of wholesome America, but the members of the House they elected are devious toads rummaging around on Capitol Hill.

Sixth, McCarthy’s map doesn’t even make sense.

Trump won more than 2,600 counties in 2016, more than five times the number of counties Clinton won. But neither candidate won 100 percent of the vote in each county. In each county, there were people who voted for the candidate who lost.

In other words, McCarthy’s not only whooshing away the Democrats in those blue (now white) counties — he’s also whooshing away the more than 20 million Trump voters who live in Clinton counties. They, according to his bad map, aren’t part of the “people that put President Trump in the White House.” Meanwhile, the more than 20 million Clinton voters who live in the counties Trump won are. McCarthy’s sloppy map labels all those Democratic voters as having put Trump in the White House.

Seventh, it wasn’t all those red counties that put Trump in the White House. Voters in Minnesota, Oregon and New York who voted for Trump didn’t help put him in the White House at all! Their votes were wasted, tossed in the garbage as soon as the electoral college got together to cast its ballots.

But more importantly: Eighth, most of the votes in most of the counties shown above were superfluous. It was, instead, 78,000 voters in three states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — who gave Trump the electoral vote margin he needed to win. The 3,860 votes Trump got in Millard County, Utah, show up prominently on McCarthy’s map, since the county is about 6,600 square miles. But they didn’t win Trump the state, much less the White House.

The real problem McCarthy faces is that his party hasn’t yet come up with any effective defenses against the substantive allegations Trump faces. Instead we’re left with things like this, red-saturated maps presented as aha!-attempt memes.

Maps that might someday be used as examples of the worst and laziest political rhetoric.

But more importantly: Eighth, most of the votes in most of the counties shown above were superfluous. It was, instead, 78,000 voters in three states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — who gave Trump the electoral vote margin he needed to win. The 3,860 votes Trump got in Millard County, Utah, show up prominently on McCarthy’s map, since the county is about 6,600 square miles. But they didn’t win Trump the state, much less the White House.

The real problem McCarthy faces is that his party hasn’t yet come up with any effective defenses against the substantive allegations Trump faces. Instead we’re left with things like this, red-saturated maps presented as aha!-attempt memes.

Maps that might someday be used as examples of the worst and laziest political rhetoric.

As an example, the DNC holds up former President Barack Obama, who is already raising money and remains neutral in a nominating fight that includes his vice president, Joe Biden, and who is already raising money for the party. An Oct. 25 email from Obama to grassroots donors produced the party's best online fundraising day of the cycle, the DNC said, and the former president will headline a fundraising gala in California in November.

DNC officials say Obama has already talked with party leaders about campaigning on behalf of the nominee, whoever it is.

Perez is asking all candidates to commit, like Obama, to serve as surrogates, with a focus on battleground states in the weeks after the July 13-16 nominating convention in Milwaukee. And Perez wants each campaign, as candidates drop out, to designate a senior adviser to serve as a liaison to help the national party use the vestiges of individual candidates' campaigns to build out Democrats' general election campaign.

DNC officials say the effort isn't targeted at any campaign. But since President Donald Trump's 2016 election, Democratic power players have lamented the bitterness that lingered among many supporters of Bernie Sanders after he lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton. Sanders endorsed and campaigned for Clinton, but some of his supporters never fully embraced her candidacy, and some Clinton loyalists blamed them for her narrow losses in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Perez is asking all candidates to commit, like Obama, to serve as surrogates, with a focus on battleground states in the weeks after the July 13-16 nominating convention in Milwaukee. And Perez wants each campaign, as candidates drop out, to designate a senior adviser to serve as a liaison to help the national party use the vestiges of individual candidates' campaigns to build out Democrats' general election campaign.

DNC officials say the effort isn't targeted at any campaign. But since President Donald Trump's 2016 election, Democratic power players have lamented the bitterness that lingered among many supporters of Bernie Sanders after he lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton. Sanders endorsed and campaigned for Clinton, but some of his supporters never fully embraced her candidacy, and some Clinton loyalists blamed them for her narrow losses in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

DNC officials say the overall purpose of what Perez calls a "unity effort" is to pool all Democratic resources, making them available to state parties in battleground states to benefit the presidential nominee and all other Democrats running for lower offices.

Perez already has required candidates to pledge explicitly to support the nominee. Candidates also have been asked to help the party raise money and, as a condition of getting the DNC's national voter file, pledge to give back the additional data they gather on voters once they drop out of the presidential race.

The DNC says 10 candidates to date have sent fundraising emails and 15 have participated in fundraising events. That list includes Elizabeth Warren, who has shunned high-dollar fundraisers for her own campaign but agreed to help the party. But it does not include Sanders, Warren's chief rival for the Democrats' progressive faction. Sanders' campaign says he would attend such events if he wins the nomination, provided they are open to low-dollar donors.

The data requirements, meanwhile, are part of Democrats' attempts to catch up to a Republican data operation that surprised the Clinton campaign in 2016 and to avoid the scenario under Obama, whose campaign ran its own sophisticated data operation but never fully integrated it with the party. Sanders also never turned over his voter data after ending his 2016 bid.

RED STATE HELLHOLES.

66 MILLION AMERICANS ARE GOING TO PUT HIM IN THE BIG HOUSE

Donald J Trump
@realDonaldTrump
“It does appear it has to do with Nancy Pelosi retaining her Speakership in the next Congress. She would like that so she’s going to put it to a vote because that’s what her political left really wants.” @SteveDoocy @foxandfriends A disgraceful use of Impeachment. Will backfire!

Militants in north-east Mali have killed 53 soldiers and one civilian in an attack on a military post, the government said.

This makes it one of the deadliest assaults of the past decade.

In a tweet, the army described it as a "terrorist attack".

Mali has suffered violence since 2012, when Islamist militants took over the north of the country. With the help of France, Mali's army has recaptured the territory but insecurity continues.

The violence has also spread to other countries in the region.

Reinforcements sent to the post after Friday's attack found 10 survivors and "significant material damage", government spokesperson Yaya Sangare said.

No group has said it was behind the assault in Indelimane in the Menaka region.