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Former Attorney General Eric Holder took to Twitter Sunday to criticize those who stopped short of calling the heinous attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, terrorism, but was instantly reminded of his own shortcomings on that topic.

If ISIS rammed a car into a crowd this would be labeled quickly & logically, he tweeted on his official account.

Charlottesville, he added, call it what it is, domestic terrorism.

President Donald Trump was widely criticized for his statement denouncing the attack that took a protesters life. Many said that it wasnt clear enough in condemning the violence from what appears to be a member of a white nationalist group.

But as many on social media pointed out, Holders criticism seemed disingenuous given that he was lambasted for designating the Fort Hood attack as workplace violence, instead of calling it terrorism.

The 2009 attack by Maj. Nidal Hasan left 13 dead and more than 40 wounded. Hasan had given many warning signs that he was being radicalized by Islamist ideology, but they were ignored until he went on his murderous spree.

The Charlottesville attack has occasioned an onslaught of criticism against the Trump administration, with many on the left attempting to blame the violence on rhetoric from the president.

Trump allies, like former Gov. Mike Huckabee,have defended the president, saying he would have been assailed by the left no matter what he said.

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Eric Holder calls out Trump over Charlottesville attack and ...

Sacramento Bee

Bernie Sanders supporter jumps in to unseat Democrat in one of nation's hottest House races Sacramento Bee A 30-year-old lawyer who backed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders last year has jumped into the race to challenge Rep. Ami Bera, a three-term Democrat representing suburban Sacramento. Brad Westmoreland, a Democrat and political newcomer, said he ... Democrats Try 'Medicare for All' as New MessagingBreitbart News all 12 news articles »

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Bernie Sanders supporter jumps in to unseat Democrat in one of nation's hottest House races - Sacramento Bee

Aug. 15, 2017 at 11:34 AM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in Berryville, Virginia, on July 24 to unveil the Democrats new agenda.

The events in Charlottesville over the weekend put President Trump on the defensive about why white nationalists see him as an ally, led key figures in his own party to distance themselves from the president and inspired some Democratic Party officials from around the country to either consider or accelerate the process of taking down symbols of the Confederacy in their cities and states. If American politics increasingly revolves around questions of culture, identity and race, as it often seems, the Democratic Party looked unified and confident amid the Charlottesville news, while Republicans were divided and a bit at sea about what exactly to say.

But there is a real, pressing battle in the Democratic Party over identity issues too, with some in the party worried that movements like Black Lives Matter turn off white voters while others say the Democrats should speak bluntly and unequivocally on issues that particularly affect women and nonwhite voters.

We also have to avoid vilifying people whose social views arent as progressive as we think they should be, reads the mission statement of a new group of centrist Democrats called New Democracy. The group, whose advisory board includes Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell, argues that both parties have indulged in a civically corrosive form of identity politics.

But Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a key figure in the partys left wing and a potential 2020 candidate, said in a recent speech, The Democratic Party isnt going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill. It is not going to happen. Were not going back to the days of being lukewarm on choice.

Before Charlottesville at least, Democrats appeared to have arrived at a compromise between their two wings: keeping their liberal stands on cultural issues, but highlighting them a bit less. Last month, congressional Democrats unveiled a new slogan, A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future, and a batch of populist-tinged policies like making it harder for big companies in the same industry to merge.

The proposals themselves and the FDR-style rhetoric surrounding them show the Democrats trying to capture the populist appeal that seemed to drive both Trump and Bernie Sanderss presidential runs last year. The Better Deal ideas are almost exclusively about economic issues and largely do not address subjects like immigration, abortion or racial discrimination.

Economic populism could work for Democrats. Trump, as FiveThirtyEight detailed after the election, was particularly strong in areas where residents had lower credit scores, men had stopped working, and where jobs are vulnerable to automation and outsourcing. Areas, in other words, where people have reason to worry about their economic future.

But heres the big potential problem for Democrats: What if Trumps victory carrying more than 200 counties where former President Barack Obama had won in 2008 and 2012 was not primarily driven by his populist economic appeals, but by his rhetoric and policies around race and identity issues instead? Trumps denunciations of Black Lives Matter, his embrace of building a wall to keep Mexicans from coming to the U.S., and his proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the country were just as much a part of his campaign as his promises to bring back coal jobs.

In short, what if the Democrats problems with white working-class voters are more about them being white than working-class?

There is reason to be skeptical that economic populism will win back Trump voters for Democrats; some scholars argue that cultural and racial issues were more important than economics to voters who cast a ballot for Obama in 2012 and then Trump in 2016. An analysis by New Americas Lee Drutman (based on a series of polls conducted by YouGov) concluded that Obama-Trump voters had more liberal views on economic issues (like the importance of Social Security and Medicare) but more conservatives ones on cultural issues, such as immigration and their attitudes toward blacks and Muslims.

The Obama to Trump voter looks very much like [Mitt] Romney to Trump supporters on attitudes toward African-Americans, feelings on immigration, and attitudes toward Muslims. Interestingly, the Obama to Trump voter is not as conservative on moral issues, and looks like a [Hillary] Clinton voter on concerns about inequality, Drutman wrote.

Political scientist John Sides, looking at that same YouGov data set and concentrating on white Obama-Trump and Romney-Clinton voters, found that the factors that were more highly correlated in 2016 than in 2012 in terms of predicting peoples votes were immigration, feelings about blacks and feelings about Muslims, not economic factors.

Similarly, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that fears of America becoming too influenced by foreign nations and favoring the deportation of undocumented immigrants were both stronger predictors of support for Trump among white, working-class voters than whether those voters said they were personally suffering from a lack of money.

Were not going to settle whether race and culture or economic anxiety was the primary driver of Trumps victory here both likely played some role but if culture and race are a big part of the problem, what should the Democrats do? The Better Deal is one move, but not the end of the debate about the Democratic Partys future. More populism was the easy part of the new agenda; figuring out race and identity is more challenging as the events in Charlottesville showed.

Generally, the what do Democrats do next conversation features two big questions in terms of race and culture: message and messenger.

Should the Democrats take more conservative stances on race and identity issues, keep the same policies but talk about them less, or keep the same policies and the same strong message regarding them?

I suspect Democrats will largely take the middle course: more populism, less talk about race and identity but without any real shifts in position on those issues. This is essentially a bet that Trumps unpopularity will help lift the Democratic Party to major gains, so they dont need a broader political course correction on race and identity. Such a middle course would also acknowledge reality: Democrats, with a party that is about 45 percent non-white, cant try to ape Trumps racial appeals to woo whites. The days of a Democrat running for president and distancing himself from a black hip-hop artist to appeal to whites (as Bill Clinton did in 1992) are probably over. Not moving right would also reflect the increasing liberalism of the Democratic Party.

But this is a tense divide, and a hard one for Democrats to discuss openly. The voices in the party advocating that it tone down its cultural messages tend to be white and male, while the strongest advocates of strong liberal stands on identity issues are often female and nonwhite.

Should Democrats run candidates who they think appeal specifically to white Trump voters, be mindful but not overly focused on that factor or ignore it completely? For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has annoyed some Democratic activists by saying that Democrats should embrace some congressional candidates opposed to abortion rights, particularly in more conservative areas.

We dont totally know exactly what kind of candidate appeals to a white Trump voter, since some of those voters backed Obama in 2008 and 2012. But you could argue that the most logical candidate, in terms of identity politics, to appeal to white, Christian male voters would be a white Christian male. (Trump ran very strong among white men and white evangelicals.)

Looking forward, this makes the 2020 Democratic field interesting. The well-known white Christian men who might otherwise be logical candidates for the Democrats have some obvious potential challenges. Trump, at age 70, was the oldest person ever first elected president. So California Gov. Jerry Brown, who is 79, and Joe Biden, 74, are facing Americas historic preference for younger candidates. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is 59, but liberal activists hate him. Hickenlooper, 65, just has not galvanized party activists so far. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, 59, has already said he will not run. Ohios Tim Ryan and Massachusetts Seth Moulton are hinting that they might consider presidential runs, and the kind of unspoken assumption here is that those relatively obscure U.S. House members could have a chance in part because Democratic primary voters might be looking for candidates who they think can appeal to Trump voters in a general election.

Many of the people whom party activists are talking about running in 2020 are not the most obvious fit with Trump voters, at least in terms of their identities: Bernie Sanders (who is Jewish), New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (black), California Sen. Kamala Harris (a black woman) and Warren (a white woman). This dynamic is playing out at the state level as well, as a lot of the candidates who have been energized to run for office since Trump won are women and people of color.

The easiest response for Democrats is to ignore this candidate factor: Obama won in 2008 and 2012, after all. We simply dont know which candidates will appeal to voters in the future. And its unfair to Trump voters to suggest that they wouldnt consider a black woman, since some of them backed Obama, and unfair to Harris and Warren to suggest that they shouldnt run for president because Americans havent elected a female candidate before.

But Trump highlighted issues of race and identity much more explicitly than John McCain or Mitt Romney did in their campaigns against Obama. I would expect him to do so again if he runs in 2020. The president has abandoned some of his campaign promises, but not the Muslim ban and the border wall. So we can expect these identity issues to be front of mind for voters. Or, as Drutman put it:

As long as ethno-cultural identity issues are salient, it will be hard for Democrats to win back Obama-Trump voters. And as long as Trump is president, ethno-cultural identity issues will be salient, because thats Trumps MO.

Several Democratic officials I spoke to privately took a more enthusiastic view. Essentially, they argued that its impossible to figure out exactly why Clinton lost in 2016 and that trying to figure out how much was race, how much was economics and how much was just Clinton is impossible and not that important: She barely lost in a weird race, and maybe a combination of more voters turned off by Trump, increased populism from Democrats and candidates other than Clinton is enough to win at least some Obama-Trump voters back.

That doesnt sound convincing. But remember: Democrats were sure that they were screwed with Christian and Middle America voters after the 2004 elections, then won the presidency in 2008 while making some small gains among those voters. Republicans were convinced they were screwed after the 2012 elections because of their unpopularity with people of color, but then won in 2016 while barely making any gains among people of color. Populism may not be the path back, but it looks a lot more logical than running a first-time senator (Obama in 2005) or a businessman with no political experience (Trump 2013) were three years before those approaches worked.

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Democrats Have Their Own Challenges In Talking About Racial Issues In The Trump Era - FiveThirtyEight

CNN Host Allows Democrat to Tell Black Republican to 'Shut Up!' CNSNews.com (blog) CNN's Newsroom Host Brooke Baldwin sat by and allowed a Democrat to racially attack a Black Republican and tell him to Shut up! on Monday. Earlier in the day, another CNN host demanded a Republican apologize for telling someone who kept ... and more »

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CNN Host Allows Democrat to Tell Black Republican to 'Shut Up!' - CNSNews.com (blog)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks during a news conference in Trenton.

If Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democratic senator who is set to go on trial for bribery and conspiracy next month, resigns or is expelled from office after August 31, the states governor, Republican Chris Christie, could appoint his successor. Assuming Christie would appoint a Republican (possibly himself), that would give the GOP an additional seat in a closely divided U.S. Senate where nearly every vote has been a cliff-hanger.

Should Menendez leave office by August 30, the vacancy would instead be filled in the states November 7 general election, since New Jersey law requires a special election to take place at the next possible general election unless that election is less than 70 days away. If Menendez leaves office after noon on January 16, the next governorset to be elected on November 7would be able to appoint his successor. That governor is likely to be Democrat Phil Murphy, who currently holds a commanding lead of 20 percent to 30 percent in opinion polls.

While New Jersey law states that the governor may make a temporary appointment of a senator even if a vacancy is filled quickly in an election, the political impact of Christie appointing a senator who would serve until November 2018 could be far greater than if he appointed a senator who served only one or two months, as would be the case if Menendez were to resign before August 30. Any senator appointed after August 30 would serve until December 2018, following the 2018 election, unless the appointing governor called a special election, a course of action that would be at the governors discretion. It is unclear if a new governor could call a special election even if a previous governor had already appointed a new senator. Division of Elections spokesperson Jennifer Stringfellow declined to answer the Prospects inquiries, citing state policies that forbid the issuing of legal advice. While New Jersey law lacks a provision that explicitly allows a special election being called after a temporary senator is appointed, there is also no provision that forbids it.

Christie could appoint himself if he so chose, an eventuality seen as likely, since he is term-limited out of the governors office on January 16 and, as the nations least-popular governor, with just a 15 percent approval rating, has limited prospects of attaining statewide office in an election. The governors two recent headline-generating forays were his familys much photographed beach visit at a time when state governments failure to pass a budget closed the beach to the general public, and his threatening a baseball fan with nachos.

A Republican appointee could prove critical to GOP efforts in the Senate, including any renewed attempts to cut the scope of health coverage and efforts to alter the tax code. One more Republican vote would have meant the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare would have passed. Then again, if a Republican appointee chose to run for a full term at the 2018 election or a special election, he or she might toe a moderate line. New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972, and Menendez won his last re-election campaign by 20 percentage points.

Menendezs trial is set to begin September 6, so the only set of circumstances that would lead him to resign before the August 31 cut off for a November vote on his successor would be if prosecutors offered and he accepted a plea deal. Attorneys for the senator had tried to get charges thrown out, arguing that the 2016 Supreme Court ruling in McDonnell v. United States, which set a higher bar for corruption convictions, invalidates the charges against the senator. Menendez stands accused of accepting lavish gifts and campaign funds in exchange for promoting the business interests of his friend Salomon Melgen, a Floridian physician who has already been convicted of fraud for improperly billing the government for more than $100 million in medical insurance payments. (Melgens sentencing has been delayed, pending Menendezs trial, in which he is a co-defendant. While there has been speculation that he could strike a deal with prosecutors that would help win a conviction against Menendez, no indication of such an arrangement has yet surfaced.)

But Menendez contends that none of the actions he allegedly took, including pressuring then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on Melgens behalf and advocating for a Melgen-owned company with the Dominican Republics government, were official acts, a standard set in McDonnell last year. That ruling, revolving around corruption charges against Virginias former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, found that the governors conviction was invalid because calling other public officials, setting meetings, and hosting events did not qualify as official acts.

U.S. District Court Judge William H. Walls opted not to rule on Menendezs motion to have the governments case dismissed on the grounds that his work on Melgens behalf did not amount to official acts. The judge ruled that the trial will move forward and the merits of the motion will be reconsidered after the government has presented its case. Menendezs actions in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2012, in which the senator pushed officials from the departments of Commerce and State to take positions on a pending contract with the Dominican Republic that benefited one of Melgens companies, could be critical. Advocating for Melgenwho had given the senator lavish gifts and campaign fundsin an official setting like a committee hearing could meet a definition of official acts that phone calls or meetings might not.

I dont think the motion was frivolous but the Supreme Courts decision will probably need further decisions by the appellate court to pin down what official action is, Anthony Capozzolo, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, says. Capozzolo was primarily assigned to the Public Integrity Section while he was a federal prosecutor.

If he were bribed to cast a vote in a certain way, that would fall clearly under the federal bribery statute, Capozzolo said. If Menendez exerted pressure through meetings or calls, however, that would be a gray area in the post-McDonnell era. Im sure the defense was not happy with the Courts decision denying the motion, but I would be surprised if part of their strategy into the trial is not to try to shoehorn the governments case in a way that makes it more likely that the definition of official action becomes an issue. I certainly think it will effect the way the defense handles witnesses during the trial because I think theyll want a record to base a motion on if theres a conviction.

Prosecutors could offer Menendez a deal before the trial, and that would likely require him to step down. If such a deal were accepted by August 30, Christie would not have the chance to appoint a successor. Capozzolo says that Menendezs trial is unlikely to last more than a month. Following any conviction, Menendezs attorneys could re-submit a motion based on McDonnell, and Judge Walls could take a lengthy period to consider any ruling if he felt it held merit.

While most senators convicted of crimes have resigned immediately, Menendez, rather than hand the seat over to the GOP, may well prove the exception to this rule. Consideration of a post-trial motion to vacate could result in Menendez holding onto his seat for a longer period, and should the judge not vacate a guilty verdict, Menendez could still appeal to higher courts over the applicability or meaning of McDonnell.

Even if such motions were rejected, there would be no requirement for Menendez to step aside, which could open the possibility that Senate Republicans would move to expel him. By forcing a vote on Menendezs expulsion while Christie is still governor, the GOP could not only pick up one additional colleague, but also put Democrats in a politically embarrassing situation.

Expulsions are rare. The last attempt to expel a sitting senator came in 2011, when Nevada Republican John Ensign resigned before a final vote could be taken on expulsion. The last successful expulsions were in 1861 and 1862, when numerous senators were expelled for supporting the secession of their states into the Confederacy. The only successful expulsion not related to the Civil War was that of William Blount in 1797. A Democratic-Republican from Tennessee, he was expelled for attempting to incite a military action by Creek and Cherokee tribes to assist Britain in an invasion of Spanish-controlled Florida.

Prosecutors are more likely to offer a deal if they think they could lose during the trial itself or if they believe the case could be overturned, possibly due to an appeal based on McDonnell, Capozzolo says. They know what risks they may have, he says. If they view their evidence as very clear that it crosses the lines of official action then they may be confident enough that theyre not concerned about it [an agreement].

Even if Menendez is exoneratedor if a conviction is vacated for another reasonhis trials and tribulations may not be done. He is up for re-election in 2018, and, while he has expressed an intention to run again, New Jersey Democrats may smell blood in the water. Menendez has appeared scandal-prone since right-wing media outlets paid three women to claim they had had sexual relations with Menendez in 2012, while they were underage, according to interviews with the women conducted by Dominican Republic police that revealed they had been paid off.

Menendez is one of the least-popular senators in the country, possibly due to his legal issues. A Morning Consult poll found that just 40 percent of New Jersey voters approve of his job performance, the third-lowest in the nation. Though no prominent Democrats have filed to run against Menendez in the primary, speculation has arisen that at least half a dozen key figures in the partyincluding four current or former House members, a former senator, a former governor, and the president of the state Senatecould challenge him.

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The 53rd Republican Senator? - The American Prospect