Ilan Goldenberg/twitter with some harsh observations:
1. As someone who was part of diplomatic talks, this story on how Trump team screwed up China negotiations is a textbook case of nearly EVERY SINGLE THING you should NOT do. Bodes badly for North Korea summit. Let’s pick it apart step by grueling step
2. Before the talks. Fail to prepare. Don’t have sufficient deliberations to come to a common negotiating position as a team. This is where you need an engaged POTUS to listen to the disagreements among the team & set guidance. Of course Trump won’t do that
3. During the talks. Because you failed to prepare have “profanity laced shouting matches” amongst yourselves in front of the Chinese encouraging them to exploit splits in the US team ...
8. Good luck with the North Korea summit. Glad we got rid of the JCPOA to negotiate a better deal. And of course we’ll get the ultimate deal on Israel-Palestine. God help us all
Foreign policy and trade negotiations are areas where competence matters. And these are areas where being a Fox news talking head is not a qualification for service. God help us all, indeed.
Max Boot/WaPo:
Here are the political norms that Trump violated in just the past week
Revealing intelligence sources.
Politically motivated prosecutions.
Mixing private and government business.
Foreign interference in U.S. elections.
Undermining the First Amendment.
Brian Beutler/Crooked:
MUELLER IS INVESTIGATING TRUMP’S WHOLESALE CORRUPTION OF AMERICA
“The Witch Hunt finds no Collusion with Russia – so now they’re looking at the rest of the World,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Oh’ [sic] great!”
In general, the political establishment lets this daily “No collusion!” mantra slide as another of Trump’s tedious eccentricities, but here we see why it’s important to treat it as a Big Lie. If it were true—if there were “no collusion”—Trump would be rightfully frustrated that the investigation had spread. But it is not true. The media has found collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which means Mueller has as well. At the very least it is firmly established that the Trump campaign was corrupt enough to solicit help from Russian intelligence for an edge in the election. Mueller’s interest in whether that openness to bad acts extended to other governments is mission creep in the same way that investigating a bank robbery suspect and finding cash bundles from other bank robberies is mission creep.
To the contrary, what we’re watching unfold is in some ways more alarming than the likelihood that Trump simply did more colluding than we thought. The countries that helped see to it that Trump became president, all of which are heavily corrupt, have been rewarded with extraordinary geopolitical spoils that have rendered U.S. interests an afterthought. Trump has frayed the western alliance more in a year and a half than the Russian government was able to do from the outside over the course of decades. He has at the same time thrown the weight of the White House behind a Saudi-Emirati effort to consolidate power in the Middle East at the expense of other U.S. allies.
Change is slow and difficult but it can happen. even in FL.
Some in media get it:
Adam Serwer/Atlantic:
There Is Only One Trump Scandal
The myriad Trump scandals can obscure the fact that they’re all elements of one massive tale of corruption.
The preceding wall of text may appear to some as an abridged list of the Trump administration’s scandals, but this is an illusion created by the perception that these are all separate affairs. Viewed as such, the various Trump scandals can seem multifarious and overpowering, and difficult to fathom.
There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.
Important concept: it’s all about a corrupt crime family grifting. Each string is part of the whole ball of yarn. And remember: Republicans are complicit. It will be an issue for November.
Ron Brownstein/CNN:
Beating Republicans in November will be harder than Democrats thought
Rather over the past several months -- particularly since the passage of the GOP tax plan late last year -- Trump has shown clear signs of consolidating more of the usual Republican institutional and electoral base than he had earlier, despite all the norm-breaking excesses of his presidency. His approval rating in most polls has moved up from the high thirties to the low forties. That's still weaker than it should be given the robust economy, but a clear sign that he has recaptured many traditionally center-right voters. Over that same period, the tightening generic ballot test measuring preferences for the 2018 election show much of that same support drifting back, like metal filings toward a magnet, around congressional Republicans.
That doesn't mean Democrats can't retake the House or conceivably even the Senate in 2018 or beat Trump in 2020. But it does mean they can't rely on Republican disarray to power those victories. Despite all of Trump's unique liabilities, the key institutions and voter blocks of red America show every sign of mobilizing to maintain their control of power in Washington.
Pro tip: no one thought it would be easy. That is to say, you gotta do the work and not just show up. Ok, but we’re doing the work. AND we’re showing up.
Amy Walter/Cook Political Report:
What Do We Know With Just Under Six Months to Go
- Trump Job Approval Has Ticked Up, But, It’s Still Pretty Bad
- When Trump Job Approval Ticks Up, Congressional Ballot Tightens
- Watch Trump Job Approval – Not His 2016 Performance
- Stop Focusing on the “Margin.” Instead Look at the Vote Share
— An incumbent ahead by 10 points sounds impressive. But, when that 10-point lead is 43 to 33 percent, you should be less impressed.
- Strong Economy, Tax Bill Success, and Lack of GOP-Infighting Has United Gop Base [put an asterisk next to this one, see discharge petition and farm bill]
- Can Trump Improve His Standing With Independents? [my pick to watch, I don’t think he will]
David Dayen/TNR:
A Fitting End to Paul Ryan’s Fraudulent Political Career
The Republican House of Representatives has become an unruly mob, and the speaker has no one to blame but himself.
The House of Representatives has become The Lord of the Flies. Republicans, despite being in the majority, lost a vote on major legislation (the Farm Bill) put forward by its leaders. The leadership might also lose control of the floor agenda, through an unusual maneuver that would force a series of uncomfortable votes on immigration. The speaker of the House could get booted in a nearly unprecedented insurrection right before the midterm elections. Moderates on the left and hardliners on the right are in open revolt.
This is not how Paul Ryan wanted to leave office. But his decision to retire at year’s end, prompted by a desire to protect himself from a tough election, caused this debacle—and it’s imperiling the political project he spent a career building.
CNN:
It's been a rough week or so for House Republicans.
Bottom line: The House Republican conference has always been, to put it kindly, unruly, but the midterms and an unstable leadership scenario has significantly magnified things -- and that has led to grumbling that outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan may
need to depart sooner than he planned.
That grumbling is far from reaching critical mass, or any type of actionable moment and senior aides predict it likely won't. But weeks like the last one only serve to exacerbate the distrust and displeasure that is lingering.
The reality: Ryan is a lame duck, but he is not in danger of being pushed out, according to several senior aides and lawmakers enmeshed in the current dynamics -- at least at the moment.
Daily Kos elections spreadsheet on the primaries yesterday is here. Check it for the winners.
TIME:
Who's Winning the Democrats' Civil War?
But is it really true that the Sanders wing is beating the Clinton wing in the battle for party dominance? [Stacy] Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, is a proud liberal, and she’s widely expected to win. Yet she insists it’s not so simple. “I was a Hillary surrogate who has hired Obama folks and Bernie folks and Clinton folks,” she told me in an interview aboard her campaign bus. In the legislature, she points out, she worked with Republicans on numerous bipartisan initiatives. “I am absolutely a progressive,” she says, “but I would not say that I represent any wing of the Democratic Party except for the Democratic wing.”
The answer: Democrats are winning the Democrats’ civil war, which isn’t a civil war.