Morning briefing: Challenger is making the most of Paul Ryan’s CNN town hall

Take a look at the stories from around our area and world that are making news today.

Challenger is making the most of Paul Ryan’s CNN town hall: David Weigel of the Washington Post writes: “CNN’s town hall forum with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, at some risk of being overshadowed by the president’s speech on Afghanistan, has turned into a marketing opportunity for progressives. Randy Bryce, Ryan’s likely Democratic opponent in 2018, has purchased time for two 30-second spots that will run during the broadcast in the Republican’s district. The first spot is designed like the sort of question-from-voters videos that are often used at town halls. Bryce fires off three questions, starting with one on the Congressional Budget Office’s coverage estimates for the American Health Care Act. Bryce then says: ‘Donald Trump is clearly a racist. When will you censure him in Congress?’ The second ad starts — as Democrats expect many 2018 ads to start — with footage from the Rose Garden celebration of the AHCA’s passage. And on the ground outside the town hall venue, progressive groups such as the Working Families Party and Ultraviolet were working to make as much noise as possible.

Ryan faces heat back home in Wisconsin: Rachel Bade of Politico writes: “The pride of Wisconsin got an earful back home. House Speaker Paul Ryan remains undeniably popular in his home state. He routed a Donald Trump-inspired primary challenger last year to win reelection. Yet the shortcomings of an all-Republican Washington this year has met disapproval from voters across the political spectrum, and it was all too evident at a nationally televised town hall here on Monday night. ‘I had high hopes since you’re the speaker and my congressional representative. How have you not been successful up until this point as a leader to get this done like you promised?’ asked Kevin Matthewson of Kenosha, pressing Ryan on why Republicans haven’t passed an Obamacare repeal bill despite unified-party control. Others at the CNN town hall were even more pointed when they weren’t on camera. ‘Ryan needs to deliver on his leadership skills,’ said Zachary Rodriguez, another Kenosha Republican and a political science major, in a brief interview before the event. ‘He needs to show especially his constituents who voted for him and gave him the job, he can get it done.’ In this small southeast Wisconsin town on Lake Michigan, the speaker received the same kind of treatment as other congressional Republican facing unhappy crowds at town halls.” Read more.

Wisconsin Department Of Health Services gets input on drug testing for food stamp applicants: Patty Murray of Wisconsin Public Radio writes: “In the last budget, the state Legislature approved a measure requiring able-bodied adults with no dependents to be screened for illegal drug usage in order to receive state food assistance. Wisconsin is now seeking a federal waiver to be able to implement the changes to the FoodShare program, beginning Nov. 1, 2018. The state Department of Health Services held a public hearing in Green Bay Monday which was sparsely attended. Two people gave testimony. One of them was Vanessa Kuettel, a staff attorney for Legal Action of Wisconsin. She said, the rule change violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure. Kuettel added that federal law already requires drug testing for benefit applicants who have been convicted of felony drug crimes within the last five years. ‘That would be individualized suspicion for the drug testing,’ Kuettel told reporters. She said the Wisconsin rule goes beyond that standard and that, ‘this proposal here is talking about suspicion-less drug testing and that’s what’s going to have a negative impact on our clients because … it will then impeded their access to food.’ DHS’ Medicaid Director Michael Heifetz said some aspects of the rule change are still in question including what kinds of drug tests will be conducted and what governmental entity will pay for them.” Read more.

Trump’s Arizona rally promises to stoke another kind of racial conflict: Roque Planas of the Huffington Post writes: “Even before taking the stage for a political rally scheduled for Tuesday night, President Donald Trump started trying to shift the national conversation back to his signature talking point: immigration enforcement. Trump hoped to find that ‘pivot’ in Phoenix, as one congressman put it, after he sparked outrage and stirred racial conflict with his muddled responses last week to white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. But shifting to tough-on-immigration rhetoric is still racially divisive, even if it’s an issue that helped put him in the White House. Trump plans to hold his rally in the border state of Arizona in the hope of energizing his conservative base. Even before announcing the details of his speech, he’d broached his pet subject. Trump told Fox News last week that he was ‘seriously considering’ the idea of issuing his first presidential pardon to former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who faces sentencing in October for a contempt of court conviction. A federal judge found that Arpaio’s office racially profiled Latinos when conducting its infamous immigration raids. Arpaio disregarded the judge’s order to stop.” Read more.

Trump’s strategy may help in Afghanistan, but few expect ‘outright victory’: Michael R. Gordon of the New York Times writes: “President Trump’s new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, which he laid out Monday night in a televised address, is intended to give a badly needed boost to the campaign to push back the Taliban, step up the fight against terrorism and reverse the steady deterioration of security that has allowed devastating bombings to shake Kabul. The strategy, which would require several thousand more troops to implement, will likely help, current and former United States commanders said. It would allow American officers to more closely advise Afghan brigades, train more Afghan special operations forces and call in American firepower. But even those who support Mr. Trump’s strategy cast his decision as the start of yet another challenging chapter that might, at best, enable Afghan forces to regain momentum on the battlefield over the next several years, not a quick fix for the problems that have bedeviled the region for nearly 16 years. ‘I do not think many believe there could be an outright victory,’ said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who has been an advocate of sending more troops to Afghanistan. ‘But if President Trump can reverse the momentum, then he could arguably claim bragging rights and achieve at least a partial strategic success.’” Read more.

Three years of preparation, two minutes of totality. For this eclipse scientist, it’s all worth it: Deborah Netburn of the Los Angeles Times writes: “There were about 10 minutes to go before the sun disappeared from the daytime sky, but things were already feeling strange. It wasn’t warm enough for a summer’s day in Oregon. The sky wasn’t bright enough. It was as if the sun had been replaced by an impostor. But Jay Pasachoff was used to it. Dressed in a white polo shirt and the bright orange pants he always dons on such occasions, the Williams College astronomer was in his element. As students around him fiddled with telescopes and filters, Pasachoff counted down the minutes to totality. ‘One minute, everyone,’ he announced as the first stars emerged. ’15 seconds.’ And then the Earth went dark. The moon, covering the sun, created a black hole in the sky surrounded by hazy wisps of the pale solar atmosphere. ‘Just gorgeous,’ Pasachoff said. Tens of millions of Americans witnessed the Great American Eclipse on Monday, and for most of them it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But for Pasachoff, standing in the shadow of the moon is part of the job. Over nearly 50 years of studying the physics of the sun, Pasachoff has become the world’s premier expert on total eclipses. As of Monday, he has witnessed 34 of them.” Read more.

Trump’s base frets about post-Bannon era: Niall Stanage of The Hill writes: “Loyalists of President Trump fear he is at risk of relinquishing the unique appeal that got him elected, even as moderate figures in the GOP celebrate the departure of the polarizing strategist Steve Bannon and hope for a more orthodox White House. The loyalists’ anxiety was sharpened on Monday evening in advance of the president’s speech about Afghanistan. Trump, who campaigned as a candidate skeptical of foreign intervention, had been expected to announce an increase in troop levels. The 16-year U.S.-led war has no obvious end in sight. In the end, Trump announced no specific increase, though his speech clearly implied a strengthening of U.S. forces. ‘Since the president was elected as a non-interventionist, I would like to hear him continue in that vein,’ said long-time Trump friend Roger Stone, who worked on the campaign’s early stages. ‘I do not think we should be putting more troops in Afghanistan, nor should we be putting troops in Syria, as his advisors want him to.’” Read more.

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