Betsy Rader is an employment lawyer at Betsy Rader Law LLC, located in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. She is running as a Democrat to represent Ohio’s 14th Congressional District in the U.S. House.

J.D. Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy,” published last year, has been assigned to students and book clubs across the country. Pundits continue to cite it as though the author speaks for all of us who grew up in poverty. But Vance doesn’t speak for me, nor do I believe that he speaks for the vast majority of the working poor.

All for Scott Walker, or something else in play? That's a fuckload of money for a gubernatorial candidate in a flyover state. What was Walker's quid pro quo? Voting machines? What other miracles were expected from what polled as a fairly safe swing state up to election night?

By Cristina Marcos @ TheHill,.com, Sept. 1

House Republicans who represent districts with large Hispanic populations are battling President Trump over an Obama-era immigration program that shields certain immigrants from deportation.

The Republicans have sought to convince Trump to keep the program alive, and have also offered legislation that would essentially make into law the protections for young people brought to the United States illegally.

Trump is expected to announce his decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Tuesday [....]

Most of the Republicans challenging Trump are targets of Democrats seeking to win back the House next year and represent districts that will help determine the House majority. The lawmakers include  [....]

By Nicole Perlroth, Michael Wines & Matthew Rosenberg @ NYTimes.com, Sept. 1

A Times investigation has found that infiltration efforts were broader than previously disclosed and that state and federal agencies have conducted few forensic inquiries.

Guest op-ed by John McCain @ WashingtonPost.com, Aug. 31

[....] Congress will return from recess next week facing continued gridlock as we lurch from one self-created crisis to another. We are proving inadequate not only to our most difficult problems but also to routine duties. Our national political campaigns never stop. We seem convinced that majorities exist to impose their will with few concessions and that minorities exist to prevent the party in power from doing anything important.

That’s not how we were meant to govern. Our entire system of government — with its checks and balances, its bicameral Congress, its protections of the rights of the minority — was designed for compromise. It seldom works smoothly or speedily. It was never expected to.

It requires pragmatic problem-solving from even the most passionate partisans. It relies on compromise between opposing sides to protect the interests we share. We can fight like hell for our ideas to prevail. But we have to respect each other or at least respect the fact that we need each other.

That has never been truer than today, when Congress must govern with a president who has no experience of public office, is often poorly informed and can be impulsive in his speech and conduct.

We must respect his authority and constitutional responsibilities. We must, where we can, cooperate with him. But we are not his subordinates. We don’t answer to him. We answer to the American people. We must be diligent in discharging our responsibility to serve as a check on his power. And we should value our identity as members of Congress more than our partisan affiliation [....]

By Tim Marcin @ Newsweek.com, Aug. 31

[....] A new poll this week from The Economist/YouGov posed the question "How much do you think Donald Trump cares about the needs and problems of black people?" A majority of respondents—57 percent—said either "not at all" (38 percent) or "not much" (19 percent). Twenty-four percent said they believed Trump cared "some," while just 19 percent felt he cared "a lot."

Among black respondents, 61 percent thought Trump cared "not at all," while 14 percent thought he cared "not much." Pretty much the only people who thought Trump cared about black people were those who voted for the former reality-TV star. Eighty-eight percent of Trump voters thought he either cared "a lot" or "some" about black people's issues and needs. Just 1 percent of Hillary Clinton voters thought he cared "a lot," while 95 percent thought he cared "not much" or "not at all." [....]

Very positive development.

By Josh Bresnahan @ Politico.com, Aug. 30

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez allegedly starting taking bribes from a wealthy donor shortly after he entered the Senate in 2006, federal prosecutors assert in a new document.

Menendez's bribery and corruption trial is set to begin next week. In preparation for that, Justice Department prosecutors filed a new document Wednesday laying out their case against the New Jersey senator, as well as Dr. Salomon Melgen, his alleged co-conspirator. Melgen has already been convicted in a separate case of bilking Medicare but has not been sentenced yet.

Menendez's fate — and the what happens to his Senate seat if convicted — is part of the drama surrounding the high-profile case. Menendez has denied all allegation of wrongdoing, and he has denied any talk of a plea deal with the Justice Department.

The new documents lay out the roadmap for the government's case against Menendez [....]

HELP THIS MEME GO VIRAL, repost somewhere.

By Lisa Rein @ WashingtonPost.com, Aug. 29

[....] Congress is likely to approve a Harvey recovery bill, as it has after past disasters, to cover the huge cost of storm damages. The cuts proposed by the Trump administration would slice away funding for long-term preparedness efforts, many of them put in place to address the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The proposed cuts would include programs run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose new administrator was praised by Trump in a tweet last weekend for “doing a great job”; the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps rebuild homes, parks, hospitals and community centers; the National Weather Service, which forecasts extreme storms; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose research and community engagement help coastal residents prepare for disaster.

“The president has definitely sent a signal with his budget that emergency management is not of interest,” said Scott Knowles, a historian at Drexel University who studies risk and disaster. [....]

Gov. Abbott, we would like to bid you a political adieu. Perhaps you can devote your time to rebuilding Houston and taking night classes in climate science. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, you will soon be asking us for money to help Texas. My answer will be yes if you stop spewing lies about climate dangers, agree to put US and Texas policy under the guidance of climate science, back measures to lower carbon emissions and stay in the Paris Climate Agreement....