A Better Deal: Today's News for July 24th

Daily Intelligencer:

Democrats to Unveil New Slogan Promising a ‘Better Deal’

Though the 2018 midterms are still a long way off, national Democrats have caught some flak for not yet developing a unified message to sell to voters beyond “Trump Is Bad.”...

To get the ball rolling in their quest to pick up the 24 seats needed for a congressional takeover, Democrats will unveil their gleaming new motto on Monday, which is … “A Better Deal.” Or, more specifically, “A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future.”

If this rather anodyne phrasing sounds familiar, it’s because it recalls two successful slogans of presidents past: Theodore Roosevelt’s “Square Deal,” back in 1910, and, of course, FDR’s “New Deal,” which he rolled out to great effect in 1932. (If you thought there might have been advances in political-branding technology in the intervening 85 years, you’d be wrong.) It also may work as a foil to the supposed “dealmaker-in-chief” who currently occupies the White House.

Basically, the Democrats are trying to play off of Trump's book title, "The Art of the Deal". Unfortunately, as Jay Willis at GQ pointed out, they ended up sounding more like this guy:

(hat tip to Papa John's for the pic)

In other news...

New York Times:

Sean Spicer Resigns as White House Press Secretary

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, resigned Friday after telling President Trump he vehemently disagreed with his appointment of Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier, as his new communications director.

After offering Mr. Scaramucci the job on Friday morning, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Spicer to stay on as press secretary, reporting to Mr. Scaramucci. But Mr. Spicer rejected the offer, expressing his belief that Mr. Scaramucci’s hiring would add to the confusion and uncertainty already engulfing the White House, according to two people with direct knowledge of the exchange.

Mr. Spicer’s top deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will serve as press secretary instead.

This story got a lot of media play on Friday, and the media has enjoyed bashing Spicer, but the press secretary is arguably one of the least important positions in the White House.

When Trump bashed his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, that was more impactful than Spicer resigning.

In odd news...

The Hill:

Burr: Nunes 'created' unmasking allegations against Rice

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) pointed to his House counterpart Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) for the narrative that former national security adviser Susan Rice improperly "unmasked" or revealed the identities of Americans swept up in intelligence reports.

"The unmasking thing was all created by Devin Nunes, and I'll wait to go through our full evaluation to see if there was anything improper that happened," Burr told CNN in comments reported after his committee interviewed Rice in a closed session on Friday.

"But clearly there were individuals unmasked. Some of that became public which it's not supposed to, and our business is to understand that, and explain it."

Nunes raised the notion earlier this year that Rice improperly requested the identities of Americans incidentally surveilled, claiming he viewed intelligence reports that showed President Trump and his associates were among those caught up in surveillance of foreign targets.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers who viewed the intelligence reports in question after Nunes, however, have said they show no evidence that Rice or any other member of the Obama administration did anything unusual or illegal.

Using intelligence reports for political purposes should be illegal, or at the very least unethical. The fact they don't consider it "unusual" is worrying.

It is also odd that Burr basically says Nunes "created" this, and then says that individuals were unmasked inappropriately. So which is it? It is possible that maybe Susan Rice didn't authorize it, but it did happen on her watch, so she is ultimately responsible if something was done improperly and she didn't call a foul on it.

Finally...

The Hill:

Pentagon to address $28M spent on untested Afghan camouflage

The Pentagon is expected to address the findings of a report that said it spent $28 million on camouflage uniforms for Afghan soldiers despite the lack of forests in the country.

According to USA Today, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) sent a letter to the Pentagon last week about the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report, which found that the uniforms were purchased without testing to be used in a country that's just 2 percent woodland. 

The Pentagon gets the bear for this one: