Robert Costa/WaPo on GA-06:
The outcome here will be seen primarily as a referendum on Trump — and a window onto the possible, with Democrats trying to score their first victory in the Trump era and pave the way to 2018, when they hope to take advantage of Trump’s unpopularity and Washington’s gridlock to win back the House.
The district, a historically ruby-red swath of suburbia that has evolved in recent years with an influx of younger, educated professionals along with immigrants, mirrors many of the communities where the fiercest midterm battles are expected to play out next year.
Politico:
GOP sirens blare over Georgia special election
Republicans brace for the possibility of an unnerving defeat.
While no one is willing to publicly write off Handel’s chances just yet — Republicans stress that she remains competitive and point to robust GOP early voting figures — several private surveys taken over the last few weeks show Republican nominee Karen Handel trending downward, with one private party poll showing 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff opening up a more than five-point lead in the Republican-oriented, suburban Atlanta seat.
“If we’re losing upper middle class, suburban seats in the South to a 30-year-old progressive liberal, we would be foolish not to be deeply concerned about the possibility that would exist for a tidal wave election for Democrats in 2018,” said Chip Lake, a Georgia-based Republican strategist and former Capitol Hill chief of staff.
Some fear the catalytic effect a GOP loss would have on the Democratic opposition, which has been raising money and recruiting candidates at a breakneck pace since Trump’s inauguration.
You are, huh?
Variety:
Why NBC Shouldn’t Air Megyn Kelly’s Interview With Alex Jones (Column)
All in all, there are precious few indications that Kelly’s piece will “shine a light” on an important topic, as she’s protested. It certainly looks like Kelly will, in an attempt to hype her own brand in her new gig, be the latest person in the media industry to help normalize Jones and his cynical brand of dangerous opportunism, more or less on his terms. More people will know who Jones is after “Sunday Night” airs — that’s all he likely wants, and Kelly and NBC are simply giving that to him.
Poynter:
Megyn Kelly, Alex Jones and how to interrogate a liar without getting played
Jones is notorious for riling up his anti-government followers with doctored videos and elaborate lies, among them that the 9/11 and Oklahoma City attacks were “inside jobs,” massacres at Sandy Hook and Orlando were “hoaxes,” Hillary Clinton was running a satanic pedophile ring in a pizza parlor, government bombs have turned frogs gay, and a yogurt company was employing migrant rapists.
The audience for such dross is larger and more influential than you might think; Infowars had 238 million visitors in the last year, including 4.5 million unique visitors in the last month, according to Quantcast — 50 percent more than Pulitzer-Prize winning fact-checking site Politifact.org, which clocked 2.9 million uniques in the last 30 days.
Hartford Courant:
Connecticut's NBC Station Won't Air Megyn Kelly Interview With Alex Jones
Connecticut's NBC station will not air the controversial Megyn Kelly interview Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones Sunday, according to an internal memo obtained by The Courant.
Officials at WVIT and NBC-Universal in New York declined to comment on the decision Friday evening.
In the memo to WVIT staff, Susan Tully, the station's general manager and president, said that because the wounds caused by the Sandy Hook tragedy are "understandably still so raw, we have decided not to air this week's episode of Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly."
Whenever there is news about Sandy Hook, "we know that the pain resurfaces for our community," Tully wrote. "Over the last few days, we have listened intently to Sandy Hook parents [and] considered the deep emotions from the wounds of that day that have yet to heal."
The memo said the station would include a report on its 11 p.m. broadcast Sunday. The interview will be available to those who want to see it on Monday on NBCNews.com.
Many people in CT (Newtown for certain) can see it on the NY stations if they wish, but I won’t watch.
BuzzFeed:
Alex Jones Scoops Megyn Kelly And Proves The Media Isn't Ready For The Trolls
Had Kelly and NBC understood this — that Jones and the pro-Trump media are capable of quickly constructing and relentlessly promoting compelling, spurious narratives — it’s possible that they would have done things differently. For example, they might not have put weeks in between recording the interview and its airdate, which allowed Jones to set the tone for the piece and stoke outrage. NBC and Kelly could have decided to forgo the strange ritual of posing for pictures with Jones, the image of which has spread across the internet to suggest that Kelly had cozied up to Jones, rather than interrogated him. And when Jones did indeed attack Kelly’s credibility and accuse NBC of “fake news” they could have taken to the internet to defend the piece and perhaps even air its toughest clips earlier. When Jones suggested NBC should pull the tape, Kelly could have used Twitter — where she has 2.36 million followers — to criticize Jones or suggest that he was being cowardly because she’d successfully exposed his “revolting” views.
But Kelly and NBC were ill-equipped to deal with the pro-Trump media apparatus. Instead, they adhered to the traditional rules of a big television interview that assume a good-faith relationship between interviewer and interviewee. Jones, however, has made a career out of subverting traditional media and acting in bad faith to the delight of his audience.
Philip A. Klein/Wash Examiner on how conservatives see it:
Republicans have already given up on repealing and replacing Obamacare
As it stands, the House-passed healthcare bill made major concessions to Obamacare. Though true that the bill repealed much of the taxes in Obamacare, it also left the law's regulatory infrastructure intact at the national level, and only allowed for limited waivers for states from some of the law's costly mandates. It delayed until the year of the next presidential election any roll back of the law's Medicaid expansion and subsidies. And then it replaced Obamacare's tax credit subsidy scheme with a new tax credit subsidy scheme.
Though the contents of the Senate bill remain shrouded in mystery, every indication is that it will preserve even more of Obamacare than the House bill does.
This, IOW, is being judged on the standard of repeal. Klein is a straight shooter, and one of the better conservative health care analysts.
The problem this is supposed to solve? Getting Rs a win.The actual policy doesn’t matter. John McCain said as much.
Tara Golshan, Vox
Generally, what are the big problems this bill is trying to solve?
John McCain
Almost all of them. They’re trying to get to 51 votes
Sarah Kliff/Vox
I’ve covered Obamacare since day one. I’ve never seen lying and obstruction like this.
There was even a brief moment Tuesday where Senate Republicans flirted with the idea of banning on-camera interviews in congressional hallways, a plan quickly reversed after outcry from the press.
“The extreme secrecy is a situation without precedent, at least in creating health care law,” writes Julie Rovner, who has covered health care politics since 1986 and is arguably the dean of the DC health care press corps.
I don’t have quite as long a tenure as Rovner, but I have been covering health care politics since Democrats began debating the Affordable Care Act in 2009. It’s become obvious to me, particularly this week, that Republicans plan to move more quickly and less deliberatively than Democrats did in drafting the Affordable Care Act. They intend to do this despite repeatedly and angrily criticizing the Affordable Care Act for being moved too quickly and with too little deliberation.
This is how it's done on Earth 2, with Republicans and Democrats working together:
Ronald Brownstein/Atlantic:
The GOP's Risky Calculation for 2018
Congressional Republicans and President Trump are governing in a manner that appeals only to their base, not the wider electorate. That could have consequences through 2020.
In the week since fired FBI Director James Comey leveled his explosive charges at the president, Capitol Hill Republicans have followed a two-track response. With virtual unanimity, they have insisted that even if Trump did everything Comey alleged, the behavior does not warrant criminal action or impeachment. And simultaneously, while the Trump-Comey confrontation has monopolized media attention, both chambers have advanced deeply conservative policy proposals—with House Republicans voting to repeal the major financial regulations approved under former President Barack Obama, and Senate Republicans working in private toward a plan to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Both of these responses rest on the calculation that Republicans can best avoid losses in 2018 by mobilizing their base supporters, no matter how other voters respond to their actions. But the choice to aim their governing decisions at such a narrow spectrum of Americans could magnify the risks facing Republicans in 2018—and, for that matter, Trump in 2020. As Trump’s presidency careens through increasingly turbulent waters, congressional Republicans are lashing themselves ever more tightly to its mast.
I wrote this for Charleston but it applies to DC:
AP:
Gianforte calls for civil politics after assaulting reporter
There’s a story that goes with it, but that headline!!