I don't understand why tweets are special. Other people use Twitter just fine. Obama had like 16,000 tweets as POTUS without any of these 35 problems.

Just like with everything else in 2017, the problem is Trump and it will remain that way until his death or impeachment, or worse (like having to wait until 2020/4).

The President is turning the news media into Entertainment media. All talk about feuds and personalities. Diminishing the media like this is a good plan going into 2018.

да

Yeah, along with the good plan of leaving the backdoor wide open and stuffed with voters' political data for Russian hackers to use however they want.

Three things about Trump and the media:

1) he's literally convincing no one who was not a hardcore Trump slappie. I bet CNN is trusted by more than 60% of people, Trump is trusted by 35% tops. His "war" with the media is just ad homin attacks saying "fake news". There is no substance or even argument, and if you weren't already an exclusive Fox News viewer, it only detracts from his credibility.

2) Trump has no problem with the media. He loves any low brow media, including the Enquierer, Breitbart, Fox, Mediadate. His best buddies run these outlets. What Trump is at war with is negative Trump coverage by outlets that practice actual journalism and are consumed by people who are not literally the least educated and informed segment of the population.

3) As the saying goes, don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel. The only president close to Trump in alienating the media and pushing media conspiracies was Nixon, and that did not end well. Going to war with the media is Trump short-termism. He's using all his powder without realizing it's a long game. Trump picks fights with everyone, the media, fbi, cia, state dept., epa, etc. It's a strong opening move, but sooner or later he's going be lamenting how unfair everything is as he continues to get wrecked and his favorability declines even further. He's already miserable and lashing out, and it's only going to get worse.

At some point Trump holds a rally and goes "We gotta special guest back stage people..." and it is Putin... and then big payoff is when he announces that he is giving Putin the nuclear launch codes.. pan to the audience of Trump trucker hat wearing ****s in tears of happiness and joy as the greatest moment of their is realized.

Trump kinda loves the NYT. There's nothing he'd love more in the world than to get respect from it. He knows he never will and will always be the cheap conman from Queens and he doth protest too much about it. This much I'm pretty sure about from listening to a reporter in New York who has interviewed Trump many times over the years. I'm sure it's the same story with any respectable media. He's trying to sound above it all or tough or something, but he's just whining.

we are no longer in an ink by the barrel society.

Justice Kennedy Tells October 2018 Clerkship Applicants He’s Considering Retirement, Right Before 2018 Midterms

https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer/st...09313042939905

Don't overthink that. He's just saying I can't guarantee you'll have a job so make backup plans.

poconoder gets the facetious reply and you get the serious one.

Does anybody else feel like the Dems have no shot to take the Senate OR the House in future elections, even if they perform flawlessly? It definitely seems as if the GOP is stacking the deck, dealing themselves the nuts, and controlling the betting for 2018.

As long as Trump keeps helping Russia attack us and as long as he's doing things like having individual states upload our valuable voter data to unsecured, 3rd party websites ripe for hackers, we're in for more than just an uphill battle.

As sad as it sounds, I think all eggs are in the Mueller basket.

As of now, Dems have a shot to take the House in 2018 despite the deck being stacked against them. It won't be easy, but it's nonzero, and it's more likely than the Senate. Trump is REALLY unpopular, and so are the Republicans' health care proposals. The Dems may need something like a 10%+ point win in the nation wide Congressional popular vote to take the House, but that's on the table albeit not a favorite. That's also not to say there won't be more anti-democratic (little d) actions taken before then to stack the deck further, and that's not to suggest competency on behalf of the Democratic party.

If the Dems don't take the House in 2018, 2020 seems really dicey. Trump is lazy, and he may not do much to rig things in 2018, but he has much more incentive in 2020.

all the people around trump, like kris k kobach, absolutely know the value of rigging every single election

Democrats will never tax the rich. They have to call the 1% to ask for donations every time they want to be elected/ reelected. The System is ****ed

These colors don't run. Remembering the GOAT tonight.

They have a reasonable chance of taking the house in 2018, but very little chance of the Senate.

Chris Christie apparently closed off the beach to the public just so he and his family could have it all to themselves.

He probably can't understand why he's not evil enough to get a job in the trump administration.

This label was first used under GW Bush by Tom Bihn bags of Seattle- needs to be revived

So I just saw something that at first didn't seem that interesting, and then as I thought about it, I realized it could be massively important. Mitt Romney is apparently considering a run for the Utah Senate seat in 2018 if Orrin Hatch retires. Hatch denies that Romney will run and won't say whether he'll retire. Ho hum, whatever, it's a red seat no matter what, who cares, right?

Not so fast... While it's easy when he's not in office, Mitt Romney has had a backbone on issues related to Trump... and he could become a POWERFUL player in the Senate on matters related to Trump, especially given the balance of power.

Right now it's 52-48, if the Democrats pick up Heller's seat in Nevada (I think they will) it's 51-49. If they pick up Flake's seat in Arizona, it's 50-50. Swap out Hatch for Romney and you have an extra swing vote - especially on healthcare, where he's likely more moderate than most of the GOP caucus... He's comically opposed to Obamacare, but he has taken some credit for it via Romneycare since 2012 and probably supports a more robust replacement.

But on Trump, he'd probably be a vote to impeach right off the bat, which would mean they'd be 16 shy. But, he's also one of the five or 10 most high profile Republicans, even when he's not holding office. As a senator, his vote could give cover to other Republicans to vote their conscience.

Obviously to a large degree this is wishcasting, and it remains unlikely that the parlay of Hatch retiring and Romney running will come through. That said, the Democrats and the left should be looking for any way possible to facilitate this. There may very well be a better chance of changing outcomes in the Senate by pushing money toward a potential Romney campaign than by pushing money toward a challenger in the third most competitive Republican Senate seat in 2018 (Ted Cruz).

Finally, he'd probably have more pull than any junior senator in decades when it came to getting on committees, and I have to imagine he'd want on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

A Romney run for the Senate could be HUGELY beneficial to the Democrats and the country in fighting back against Trump. Also, Biden apparently urged him to run. When I saw that headline, it left out Utah, and I scratched my head. Why in the WORLD would Biden want Romney to take a Senate seat from Massachusetts. Then I read it, saw it was Utah, and figured it out.

If we're wishcasting for Utah, we should do it for McMullin. It doesn't seem so far fetched, considering he got 22% of the Pres vote. Although I guess the RNC would not back him, since he dared to oppose their Daddy.

That wasn't the point of my post though. The way it looks right now, there's more than a reasonable chance Dems will be frozen out of 2018 and future elections. Trump's base is actually encouraging him to keep the Democrats out of the government at all costs. They don't care about broken norms, ethics, or even laws. Just keep those dirty Dems out of office.

The other point was if Mueller fails, WAAF.

All of this is assuming that the Democrats hold ALL of their own seats that are up. They have 10 races to defend in states that Trump won.

It's always been super unlikely Kennedy makes it through Trump's first term. We kind of just have to accept it, unfortunately.

Absolutely have to emphasize how important it is to elect a Democrat in 2020 for the ****ing inbred idiots who say "they are all the same."

I've given up on this group. They are willfully blind at best.

I think we should wait awhile before lionizing RMoney. Holding elected office has a curious way of causing GOP spines to disintegrate when it comes to opposing Trump.