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Congressional Democrats already had leverage in two of the big impending legislative battles this fall. Congress cant raise the debt limit or pass must-pass appropriations through the reconciliation keyhole, so Republicans will be forced to muster 60 Senate votes to avoid a Democratic filibuster. The strong possibility of conservative GOP defections especially in the House makes some Democratic support even more essential.

At the moment, it seems no significant bloc in Congress wants to play games with a debt-limit increase and risk a debt default. So a clean debt-limit bill, perhaps attached to some noncontroversial legislation, is currently the best bet. But the appropriations bill needed to avoid a government shutdown is another matter altogether. And the presidents explicit threat in Phoenix earlier this week to shut down the government (presumably by vetoing an appropriations measure) if he doesnt get what he wants in the way of funding for his border wall raises the stakes even higher.

Democratic leverage over appropriations is fortified by the broadly accepted understanding that as the party controlling both Congress and the White House, Republicans are likely to get the lions share of public blame for a government shutdown. Thats all the more true if a demand of the presidents is perceived as precipitating the crisis.

But in exercising their leverage, Democrats need a clear understanding of what they are willing to accept in exchange for whatever they demand. Remarks by House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Chuck Schumer in response to Trumps government shutdown threat came pretty close to saying that they will not negotiate on a border wall. If thats the case, the goal for congressional Democrats is pretty clear: inflicting a definitive legislative defeat on Trump while depicting him as irresponsibly pursuing a demagogic and divisive policy. Splitting the congressional GOP, much of which is lukewarm about the border wall, is a bonus.

If, on the other hand, the Democrats will accept some sort of border-wall funding for the right price, the Democrats have a menu of options available to them:

1) A larger bargain on immigration policy in which Trump agrees to such measures as statutory protection of Dreamers (currently threatened by the temporary nature of Obamas DACA executive order, which could get struck down in the courts even if Trump doesnt rescind it) or even the shelving of proposals to restrict legal immigration, in exchange for border-wall money.

2) A deal that brings in some key side issues like Obamacare stabilization (especially cost-sharing reduction subsidies), CHIP reauthorization, or even voting rights.

3)A really grand bargain on fiscal issues that includes binding assurances affecting the budget and tax measures the White House and congressional Republicans are pursuing on aseparate track (e.g., no Medicare or Medicaid cuts, a limit on upper-end tax cuts).

Complicating the picture is that aside from the border-wall issue, most congressional Republicans very badly want defense-spending increases that will involve a waiver on the spending caps that have been in place since 2011. In the past Democrats have been willing to go along with such waivers in exchange for corresponding waivers in caps on non-defense spending. That could represent a deal within a deal.

And beyond all these issues, there are conservative demands that could be as aggressively advanced as Trumps, including the House Freedom Caucuss chronic temper tantrums for domestic spending cuts, and the powerful anti-abortion lobbys demands for a defunding of Planned Parenthood, a goal so widely binding on Republicans that it made it into the last-gasp, bare-bones skinny repeal GOP health-care proposal. Even if Democrats reject such demands out of hand (which they have done in the past), they will affect negotiations on the other side of the table.

All in all, so long as they dont let themselves look like the sole culprits in a government-shutdown threat, Democrats are in the catbird seat in this scenario. Republicans cant keep the government open without them, and the Democrats have fewer internal divisions on the key issues than the GOP. If they choose a strategy and stick to it, either Republicans will take the country over the cliff, or a deal dictated by Democrats will be struck, or most likely of all Congress will kick the can down the road a few months with a continuing resolution that leaves things where they are right now, with the GOPs many promises to its base still unfulfilled. The Donkey Party can live with that.

Convicted killer Mark James Asay lost his last appeal, and was executed on Thursday night.

Weeks ago, nearly 50 counties had no insurer selling Obamacare plans. Despite Trumps many acts of sabotage, that number is now zero.

So long as the president has an internet connection, hes bound to read and, occasionally retweet all manner of far-right wing nuts.

Weve had the time of our lives, and we owe it all to him.

If Trump were to be removed from office via impeachment, the GOP would continue to rule with much the same policies. So why all the talk of a coup?

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says hes recommending changes to a handful of national monuments.

Its an acknowledgement that the sailors are not expected to be found alive.

History shows the party in the White House struggles to knock off incumbent senators in midterms. Its one of many cross-cutting factors for 2018.

Fix the Debt is now fixin to get paid.

Police are reporting that one person died, and the suspect was shot and taken to the hospital.

It could become a Category 3 storm and cause potentially devastating floods by dumping close to two feet of rain in some areas.

Now that the president has put a government shutdown squarely on the table, Democrats must decide if they want a deal, or just a Trump defeat.

A primer on how the Houses struggle to pass a 2018 budget could blow up tax reform and Americas credit rating.

The White House chief of staff is controlling the flow of information to the president and presenting him with decision memos.

The president plays backseat Majority Leader, as relations between the White House and Capitol Hill continue to sour.

Progressives have taken up a conservative principle as a shield against the federal government. But is it just a marriage of convenience?

Rick Dearborn, who is now deputy chief of staff, reportedly passed along information about someone trying to connect Trump officials with Putin.

The charges stem from his use of pepper spray at the rally in Charlottesville, which he says was justified.

They said his words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia.

The reported plan gives Mattis six months to figure out what Trumps tweets mean for service members and by then the courts may have weighed in.

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If Trump Keeps Threatening Government Shutdown, Democrats Will Have Some Leverage and Some Options - New York Magazine

Sacramento Bee

California Democrats OK bill to help senator facing recall Sacramento Bee California Democrats fast-tracked a bill Thursday that could help protect one of their own lawmakers facing a recall and preserve their Senate supermajority after a court put their first attempt on hold. Republicans hope to recall freshman Sen. Josh ... Another effort by Democrats to revamp California's recall elections is signed by Gov. Jerry BrownLos Angeles Times all 5 news articles »

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California Democrats OK bill to help senator facing recall - Sacramento Bee

Republican leaders may hope to get some Democrats to vote for their tax legislation, but don't expect that to happen if it winds up just being tax cuts, Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., told CNBC on Thursday.

"We are not going to support simply tax cuts. We've been through that game before, and we're not going to do it again," he said in an interview with "Closing Bell."

"We want the middle class to really feel that the government is on their side. And in order to do that, you need comprehensive reform."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told CNBC on Thursday that he believes he can get some lawmakers from across the aisle to support the tax reform legislation, which he said will get passed this year.

However, Republicans have yet to agree on a plan. And adding to the tension within the party is President Donald Trump, who has been publicly shaming GOP leaders for the lack of action.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is beginning to think true reform is pretty much dead and instead sees tax cuts as more likely.

Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., said Republicans would ideally like comprehensive tax reform but acknowledged that one of the options may wind up being tax cuts.

"My preference and I think all of our preference, Republican and Democrat alike, is to get to real reform that would be as close to fully paid for as possible. That's easier said than done," he said.

CNBC's Jeff Cox contributed to this report.

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Democratic congressman: Tax reform is good, but we're not going to support only tax cuts - CNBC

In Trump's estimation, a variety of foreign forces was responsible for the lot of the silent but angry majority: illegal immigrant labor, Chinese trade practices, America's allies who should be expected to pay for the privileges of the U.S.-led world order, Europeans that sacrifice Western culture upon the altar of multiculturalism, etc. Trump wasn't abandoning this white identity politics last week; he was reaffirming fealty to it.

Freeman's second contrarian is a predictable one. The cartoonist Scott Adams has found a second career in reflexively ascribing brilliance and foresight to every presidential synapse. On Thursday of last week, Trump reacted on Twitter to an ongoing terrorist attack in Spain by alluding to the utterly apocryphal story of General John Pershing's crimes of war. The storyone Trump knows is false because it was attacked as false when he used to tell it on the campaign trailalleges that the American war hero discouraged Islamist terrorism in the Philippines by burying Muslims with the bodies of pigs so they might find no peace in the afterlife.

You might not be surprised to learn that Adams thinks this is yet anothermasterful example of public persuasion. You see, Trump is communicating his toughness on terrorism. By lying, he will compel media to fact-check him, amplifying his persuasive persuasion.

Trump has persuaded himself right into history as the most unpopular president at this point in his presidency in the history of modern polling. There's no honest way to claim a week that resulted in the broadest critical reaction among Trump's Republican allies since the release of the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape was a great week for the president. Even if Trump spent a week skipping through a minefield, though, that doesn't mean his opponents' fortunes were advanced.

An online poll commissioned by Axios found that a "remarkable" 40 percent of adults signed on to Trump's assertion that both demonstrators on the left and the right were responsible for the violence in events in Charlottesville. They see members of the academy defend political violence, even as liberals pen hallucinatory love letters to themselves congratulating their movement on its restraint. They've watched with apprehension as an agitated mob tears down a statue of a nondescript Confederate soldier in North Carolina as though it were a likeness of Felix Dzerzhinsky.

They watch as liberal commentators call for an end to the veneration of figures like Washington and Jefferson, just as Trump said they would and (have been doing for years), even as coastal elites insist that no one advocates such things. On Monday, Baltimore awoke to see a 200-year-old monument to Christopher Columbus destroyed by a vandal with a sledgehammer. They know that this is not some isolated event but an extension of the madness they've seen take hold of the country, even amid lectures about how connecting these dots is woefully unenlightened.

"The people asking these questions (over and over and over) are not racist," wrote Senator Ben Sasse. "Rather they're perplexed by the elite indifference to their fair questions." Liberals dismiss these sentiments at their peril. Despite a Republican president's unpopularity and the dysfunction of his party in Congress, Democrats have so far been unable to capitalize on the environment. Even by its own modest standards for success, the Democratic National Committee's fundraising has been bleak. On Thursday, Cook Political Report shifted the race for Senate in four Democrat-held states in the GOP's direction.

Attributing Donald Trump's wink and nod in the direction of white supremacy last week to strategic genius is simply deluded. That does not, however, suggest that Democrats are benefiting from Trump's recklessness. Liberals have given the public no assurances that they can govern from the center, or that they even see that as a desirable enterprise. And yet, Democrats still appear convinced they are the default beneficiaries when Trump falls on his face, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Commentary by Noah Rothman, associate editor at Commentary Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @NoahCRothman.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter

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Trump's stumbles don't automatically benefit Democrats - CNBC

Photo Voters at Public School 62 in Brooklyn in 2016. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

In its politics, New York City is solidly Democratic. If only the politicians were as resolutely democratic. All too often, they have a tendency to freeze out the very people who are supposed to decide who fills elective offices. Those people are known as voters.

The phenomenon is not new, but it has been on conspicuous display in recent weeks.

David Greenfield, a City Council member from Brooklyn, filed for re-election, then announced he was leaving to head an antipoverty group. Daniel Squadron, a state senator from a Brooklyn-Manhattan district, said he was resigning to form a nonprofit group that would cultivate a new breed of office seekers. Herman Farrell, a state assemblyman from Manhattan since 1975, announced this week that he would step down on Sept. 5, the anniversary of his first government job working for a state judge 51 years ago.

Sentiment, however, was not Mr. Farrells sole guide, just as it wasnt for the other men. Democrats all, they timed their departures so that picking successors would in effect fall to party leaders, not to registered Democratic voters.

Thats because the filing deadline had come and gone for potential candidates to enter primaries that will be held on Sept. 12. By default, Democratic county committees now get to pick who runs for those seats in the Nov. 7 general election. Their Republican counterparts will do the same. But the chances of Democrats losing in those districts are equal to those of LOsservatore Romano criticizing the pope. The vacant seats will effectively be filled by party stalwarts.

This is gaming the system. The party is central and the voter is collateral, and thats backwards, said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. Dick Dadey, executive director of the good-government group Citizens Union, called it outrageous.

There are possible repairs for this election cycle, if the political powers want to move fast. Party primaries for the vacant seats could be held on Nov. 7, Mr. Dadey suggested, with a general election scheduled a few weeks later. Or perhaps, Ms. Lerner said, officials could speed up the petition-signing process for candidates, forget about primaries and go right to an open election one step.

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New York Democrats Snub the Voters - New York Times