"Stay strong buddy."

Except in front of a stadium on TV.

The party that doesn't control the White House typically has bad midterm elections in the best cases. The likely saving grace for Republicans in 2018 is that the closest analog is the 2002 midterms, when Republicans expanded their majorities in both the House and Senate. That was after another presidential election where the ultimate winner lost the popular vote, and didn't have the coattails that Obama did in 2008. However, 2002 was also after 9/11, and GWB was way more popular than DJT is now, so the likelihood for an historic realignment is high, even without the prospect of a government shutdown.

Not gonna be impressed anymore until one of these guys resigns and spells out **** YOU DRUMPF in vertical letters.

Disagree on most of this. Dems need to gain 22 seats for a majority. Pretty well within the realm of possibility: see 06 and 08. Not saying it's likely necessarily, but "never" seems strong especially if you're conceding they "obviously" gain seats.

Trump was never quiet, and pussygate was in October.

I can't find it now but I saw something the other day where a polling company had run a simulation 40k times and it predicted that Dems take the House in 2018.

Did anyone notice that John Kelly was asked to come on stage by Trump and he didn't last night?

At what rate? No way it's every time.

At what point will we start to get some predictive polling for 2018? Are there any resources out there to compare generic congressional polling from 1+ year out to election day results?

This is a golden opportunity for Democrats. They should have had these two votes circled on their calendar since the day after the election.

I don't think the wall is worth actually going to the mattresses over, especially considering that plenty of Republicans in the Senate don't want it anyway, and thus it's likely to be barely funded so that Trump can claim a win and save some face on the issue. To me, the wall is a colossal waste of money, screws over some people living near the border, and is a little offensive... But in the realm of Trump's offensive ****, it's nothing. In the realm of how much money we spend, whatever gets thrown in this bill is nothing. In the realm of people being screwed over, those living near the border are nothing - and most of the wall will be in states that went for Trump, anyway.

That said, this is a glorious opportunity for Democrats in Congress, as Congressional Republicans will be stuck dealing with both Democrats, their own flanks, and Trump to pass both a budget and the debt ceiling, with the wall attached to one or the other. Democrats can get a win here by either getting spending they want included (Obamacare subsidies are an obvious option), making Republicans look horrible, or both. If they're competent, they'll get some variation of both.

On the debt ceiling, there will be Republicans in Congress who will grandstand about only voting yes if certain spending is excluded (like Planned Parenthood type stuff, whatever the religious right's cause du jour is next month), about only increasing the debt ceiling if the budget is balanced, those that will view voting yes as a concession in and of itself and demand something in return from the left (or simply want to default), and I'm sure a couple will somehow otherwise manage to shove their heads up their asses on the issue as per typical GOP debt ceiling standard operating procedures.

Imagine if Democrats promised to vote yay unanimously in exchange for Obamacare subsidies and wildly popular ideas the GOP elites loath like a $2/hr increase in federal minimum wage (to $9.25), or a promised series of clean up-and-down votes in both chambers on better background checks, blocking mentally ill people from buying guns, blocking people on terror watch lists from buying guns, etc. (Democrats would likely lose, but Republicans would own their votes).

They also should be trolling Trump at every opportunity over Mexico not paying for the wall... This has major GOP/Trump implosion potential. There are even scenarios where a proposal hits the floor for a vote with broad Democrat support and still can't pass, or where the final bill has more D votes than R votes despite Republicans controlling everything.

I think Democrats should actually announce their willingness to fund the wall if something that Trump won't care about, but the GOP in Congress will, is attached to the wall. Pick something Trump has been flip-flopping on historically (abortion/Planned Parenthood, strengthening Social Security or Medicare) and say you'll fund the wall if that spending goes in, too. If Trump values a bipartisan wall > the issue you choose, you thrust the GOP into a massive internal crisis where Trump is lambasting his own party. If not, you can say you'll pass it without the wall or with that, it's up to the GOP and Trump who control everything... Either way, they're in a bad spot.

Some numbers that should guide Democrats strategy on this... As of 2010, only 26% of Americans knew that a filibuster required 60 votes in the Senate to break it according to Pew polling. Who's willing to bet that a lot of that 26% is on the left?

In theory, that number should be higher now after the politics of the last few years... But I'd guess that among Republicans it's still <25% and among independents it's probably <35%... Meanwhile, most non-deplorable Americans probably know that Republicans have the House, Senate and White House.

I think the GOP gets the overwhelming majority of the blame on this, and the majority of the blame that matters, too (like, the opinions of deplorables don't matter, their votes are locked in).

Democrats should know all too well that being perceived to be in control, without having a filibuster-proof majority, is a major headache on the debt ceiling and government shutdowns. The GOP has exerted maximum pressure in these situations for eight years. It's Democrats' turn. They better play chess, not checkers.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...gging-service/

Should I be surprised that through comments the Whitehouse doesn’t understand freedom of speech?

Maybe he didn't want to break federal law like Carson did.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/08/23/why-ben-carsons-appearance-in-phoenix-was-likely-a-violation-of-federal-law/?utm_term=.c21aa1412dfe

I would go with Donald Cuck over Trump

Sorry, too late, his allegiances are already with Trump

Poor Dan Kammen, he thought he would get to work for corrupt Hillary when he accepted this position in 2016, but it didn't work out for him. Best laid plans...

нет

Before reading this (assuming Hatch Act), I got reminded of how overly blatant the Emoluments clause has been violated and the explanation given.

When Trump got sued by Maryland and DC over Emoluments, DOJ/Sessions sent a letter that basically said Trump can take as much as he wants from foreign governments because this law doesn't apply to his situation.

EDIT: Your link is broken. Reposting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c21aa1412dfe

The conflict with McConnell is pretty major development. Trump needs McConnell for basically any policy to be enacted. And when McConnell's former chief of staff says, "The quickest way for him to get impeached is for Trump to knock off Jeff Flake and Dean Heller and be faced with a Democrat-led Senate," that's a warning from McConnell himself, as no lobbyist is going to say anything that would alienate those he's paid to lobby.

Really, this is a dumpster fire of incompetence that screams mental illness. I think la affire de Trump is going to eclipse just about everything else in political science and modern history over the next 30 years. My take is that most people try to be "decent," but they just have no clue how the US political system operates. Trump just engaged their lizard brains, which had been primed by decades of resentment, and likely most, not really knowing much or following politics closely, thought he'd be better than those smooth talking elites who refuse to do simple, commonsense things to make Amercia Great again. These people are dangerous idiots, analogous to Hitler's willing executioners. Democracy must include them, but the system must be designed to limit their influence.

Also, random point on polls. The press loves headlines like "98% of Republicans think Jesus wrote the Constuitution." The thing is, however, that there are fewer and fewer self-identified republicans. You're only really talking about the "hardcore." Again, most Americans are pretty dumb and many dumb, otherwise decent people consider themselves "independent" because they don't really know much about history, politics, or policy.

Second random point: the GOP is doing more than I expected to "push back" on Trump, largely under the radar, like with the sanctions bill. Liberals complain that they haven't gone full anti-Trump, but they are resisting more than I expected, just in ways that are not particularly public. They really are a cornered animal with no good options. As I noted in some earlier post: "Trump's not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with him."

No not every time.

This is it. http://politicaledu.org/2018-house-predictions/

Oh, and this "Build the Wall" budget threat. Trump is like a hostage taker with a gun to his own head. Pretty soon the crowd will be like, "Just Do IT, don't be a Wuss!" and "Pull the trigger!". The guy does not have a strategic bone in his body. It's laughable to see people like Skalansky/Dilbert try to impose some sort of rational framework on him. He's a bloated moron who is just mashing buttons.

Act II is going to be fun:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/u...ell-trump.html

McConnell already bent the knee, though

Trump's whole team had all those interactions with a foreign enemy over 2 years, and not a single one ever listed it on their forms or went to the authorities.

Now these same people CREATE the forms and they ARE the authorities.

That model doesn't look right at all. It has Dems as greater than 95% to take the house, which seems way too high. Looks like it's based on historical data, so it probably misses the gerrymandering advantage that Republicans have.

Guess I can't blame Trump for not knowing since I didn't or can I?

MSNBC said earlier that McConnell denied the reporting about Trump pressuring him. I can't find it in Google though. Anyone else hear the same?