Politico: “The debt and spending bill approved by Capitol Hill on Friday averted imminent fiscal disaster, but it’s added more misery for a Republican Party whose agenda has floundered even with unified control of Washington for the first time in a decade. It’s also given Democrats significant leverage to imperil tax reform, the GOP’s best hope at a major legislative victory.”
“Rather than dictating the agenda of Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers oftentimes find themselves at the whims of a capricious White House, Democrats in the minority and a calendar that’s getting increasingly packed ahead of campaign season next spring. Speaker Paul Ryan predicted in January that tax reform, Obamacare repeal and a border wall would all be done by now. Instead, Obamacare repeal may be completely dead at month’s end, there are just broad strokes on tax reform and many Republicans oppose the border wall being pushed by their own president.”
New York Times: “Republicans fear that Mr. Trump has relinquished his role as leader of the party, instead assuming the mantle of his own political movement. And they are bracing for an election season in which their deeply unpopular president does more to undermine than aid candidates of the party he ostensibly oversees.”
“Such open divisions between a president and elected officials of the same party mark an extraordinary departure from modern political tradition. Even if they feuded at times with their president, lawmakers knew they could ultimately count on the White House to endorse and raise money for incumbents, because controlling as many seats as possible would serve both their interests.”
Key takeaway: “Republicans fear a wave of retirements going into next year. Rep. Dave Trott of Michigan is considering retiring, and another Michigan Republican, Fred Upton, may retire or run for the Senate, according to multiple party officials.”
NEW – A month to day after Trump called opioid crisis a nat emergency, his admin hasn't moved to actually declare it https://t.co/8TjltLu4av
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 10, 2017
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) acknowledged the severity of his cancer prognosis, saying in his first national interview since receiving the diagnosis that it is the latest test in a lifetime of tough fights, CNN reports. Said McCain: “I’m facing a challenge, but I’ve faced other challenges. And I’m very confident about getting through this one as well.”
Hurricane forecasts have gotten much better over the past few decades, but they are far from perfect. https://t.co/QbePSwNpGr
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) September 10, 2017
“It makes all of their normalizing and ‘Trumpsplaining’ look silly and hollow. Trump betrays everyone: wives, business associates, contractors, bankers and now, the leaders of the House and Senate in his own party. They can’t explain this away as a 15-dimensional Trump chess game. It’s a dishonest person behaving according to his long-established pattern.” — GOP strategist Rick Wilson, quoted by the Washington Post, on his party’s congressional leaders.
NEW VIDEO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hosts glitzy gala for nuclear scientists, shows first video of purported H-bomb test pic.twitter.com/2gZZrEawwg
— Will Ripley (@willripleyCNN) September 10, 2017
Kevin Bingle: “One common response to the news that a Kremlin-linked online operation in Russia bought $100,000 worth of Facebook ads during the 2016 election campaign has been that the money is a drop in the bucket relative to the more than $1 billion spent on ads during the cycle, or the $27 billion in revenue earned by Facebook last year.”
“But as one of a handful of Americans who managed the digital operations of a 2016 presidential campaign, I think $100,000 smartly spent on Facebook could have a much larger reach than you may realize. And more importantly, nobody — not the political pros, or the advertising gurus — truly knows how far a message spreads when Facebook is paid to promote it. The social network still contains many mysteries, even to those pouring millions into it.”
The New York Times reports: “The new chief of staff has tried to shield Gary D. Cohn, the chairman of the National Economic Council, from Mr. Trump’s continuing wrath since the former Goldman Sachs executive went public with his disgust at the president’s response to the deadly violence last month in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Kelly made a point, one staff member said, of throwing his arm around Mr. Cohn in solidarity, in full view of the news media, as they exited Marine One last week on the South Lawn.
But he has not always been successful. Several aides said Mr. Trump is freezing out Mr. Cohn by employing a familiar tactic: refusing to make eye contact with Mr. Cohn when his adviser greets him.”
What a fucking coward Trump is.
Jane Pauley: "Is your political career over?" pic.twitter.com/ppIE4gSwd7
— CBS Sunday Morning (@CBSSunday) September 10, 2017
Hillary Clinton told CBS News that she will not pursue the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Said Clinton: “I am done with being a candidate.” But she added: “I am not done with politics because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake.”
New York Times: “Republicans fear that Mr. Trump has relinquished his role as leader of the party, instead assuming the mantle of his own political movement. And they are bracing for an election season in which their deeply unpopular president does more to undermine than aid candidates of the party he ostensibly oversees.”
“Such open divisions between a president and elected officials of the same party mark an extraordinary departure from modern political tradition. Even if they feuded at times with their president, lawmakers knew they could ultimately count on the White House to endorse and raise money for incumbents, because controlling as many seats as possible would serve both their interests.”
Key takeaway: “Republicans fear a wave of retirements going into next year. Rep. Dave Trott of Michigan is considering retiring, and another Michigan Republican, Fred Upton, may retire or run for the Senate, according to multiple party officials.”
Playbook: “OMB Director Mick Mulvaney was thrashed by his former House Republican colleagues yesterday in a closed door meeting, GOP lawmakers called Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin a Democrat and scoffed at his requests and Gary Cohn is still on the outs with President Donald Trump. Those are the three people most intricately involved in tax reform, which the White House wants done by the end of the year.”
Politico: “Rumors of Gary Cohn’s demise in Donald Trump’s White House have swirled for weeks. But Cohn is intent on remaining with the administration to finish tax reform — though it’s unclear how long he would stay beyond its passage.”
Bannon: Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan want to nullify the 2016 election. He also says McConnell asked Trump to stop saying "drain the swamp" pic.twitter.com/QyRuf6laZ1
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 9, 2017
“This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the EPA and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change. If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.”
— Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, quoted by the Miami Herald, criticizing the Trump administration for denying the connection between climate change and increasingly destructive storms.
New York Times: “Although elected as a Republican last year, Mr. Trump has shown in the nearly eight months in office that he is, in many ways, the first independent to hold the presidency since the advent of the current two-party system around the time of the Civil War.”
“In recent weeks, he has quarreled more with fellow Republicans than with the opposition, blasting congressional leaders on Twitter, ousting former party officials in his White House, embracing primary challenges to incumbent lawmakers who defied him and blaming Republican figures for not advancing his policy agenda.”
Here's how Harvey and Irma will impact our economy https://t.co/2xAqHZRrnS
— Daily Intelligencer (@intelligencer) September 8, 2017
“California is pushing forward with a plan to change the state’s primary date from June to March, a move that could scramble the 2020 presidential nominating contest and swing the early weight of the campaign to the west,” Politico reports.
“If adopted by the legislature this week — as is widely expected — and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, the early primary would allocate California’s massive haul of delegates just after the nation’s first contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”
“The earlier primary could benefit at least two potential presidential contenders from California — U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — while jeopardizing the prospects of other candidates who will struggle to raise enough early money to compete in expensive media markets in the nation’s most populous state.”
There is video of the State GOP Chair speaking at the anemic Trump rally. You only have to see the first 60 seconds of this train wreck to get a key insight into the local organization. Among the GRIFTUS’ many accomplishments is one I didn’t know about:
“Appointed Neil Gorsuch to replace the late great judge ANTHONY SOKOLA!”
How about a little article or something; to the people, that lost their lives on this date!
Nobody’s stopping you from doing that.