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It has been a rough Friday morning for President Donald Trump. He fired off a pair of tweetstorms aiming his anger at investigators looking into his potential ties to Russia, the "fake news media"and, in general, the "phony Witch Hunt going on in America."

He has reason to be angry. Trump's support among Democrats and independents has long been pretty dismalbut now things are growing worse among his own party and thedemographic groupsthat largely thrust him into the White House.

In just one month, the percentage of Republicans who thought America was heading in the right direction dropped a full 17 percentage pointsfrom 58 percent in May to 41 percent in Juneaccording to a Gallup survey released this week. Overall, just 24 percent of Americans are pleased with the direction the country is heading, the lowest point since July of last year when the figure plunged after a series of police-involved shootings.

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There are other worrying signs for Trump. A survey released this week from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Researchpollfound the president's support among Republicanswhich is, of course, his own partyhad plunged. The poll found that one-quarter of the GOP respondents now disapproved of the job Trump was doing, up from 20 percent the month prior.

The investigation into Trump's potential ties with Russiaand the president's decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, who was charged with looking into those potential tieshave left a fair number of Republicans feeling concerned. Twenty-five percent of GOP respondents in theAssociated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Researchpoll said Trumpattempted to impede or obstruct the investigation through that firing. It's worth noting that obstruction of justice has long been considered an impeachable offense.

Trump'sbase voters, his key demographics, appear to be growing weary of the president, as well. Sixty-six percent of white voters without college degrees cast their ballot for Trump, according to CNN's exit polls. Yet among whites without a college education the president's approval rating stands at just 50 percent, according to theAssociated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

While the White House has long been defined by tumult and some Republicans have been withdrawing from the president for a while, recent signs have been particularly worrying for Trump. Last week a Quinnipiac University pollfound 32 percent of GOP respondents thought the president was not level-headed, while 21 percent said he did not share their values. Twenty-eight percent of the GOP thought Trump was not keeping his promises about fighting corruption in D.C.Overall, theQuinnipiacsurvey found Trump's approval rating had dipped to a new low of just 34 percent.

"If this were a prize fight, some in his corner might be thinking about throwing in the towel. This is counter puncher Donald Trump's pivotal moment to get up off the mat," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll."With a third of the members of his own party questioning his level headedness, this is clearly the moment the president needs to steady the ship."

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Trump's Latest Problem: His Base And Republicans Are Fleeing The President Amid Russia Controversy - Newsweek

Step back from the daily headlines of the Trump administration.

After almost 6 months under President Trump and the 115th Congress, the United States is in a strange position: Republicans enjoy a decisive partisan advantage, controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

Yet GOP officials have no mandate to govern. (And neither, of course, do Democrats.) The country is adrift as a result, even amid significant challenges that confront it at home and abroad. And it is likely to stay adrift through the 2018 midterms, when voters can next send a clear signal about their preferred course.

Until then, Trumps allies will remain frustrated by the stiff opposition their champion faces. Some cast that opposition as illegitimate, given that Trump won the 2016 election. They insist that allegations about collusion with Russia and entrenched opposition from the bureaucracy are unfairly stymieing the White House.

But even if Trump is vindicated on Russia and gains greater sway over the federal workforce, this fact will remain: Voters preferred his opponent by a margin of more than 2 million, even though the Democratic nominee was a weak, corrupt candidate.

Yes, the Electoral College confers absolute legitimacy on its winner.

But it cannot confer an accompanying mandate on a candidate who loses the popular vote by so much. In fact, asked after the election if Trump had a mandate to carry out the agenda he campaigned on, or if he should compromise on matters that his Democratic rivals strongly oppose, just 29 percent of Americans said he had a mandate. And even that 29 percent may feel differently about matters where Trump campaigned on one agenda only to pursue a distinct or contrary course in office.

Trumps initial lack of a mandate has been underscored by his consistently dismal approval ratings. A clear, growing majority says it disapproves of his performance. Nate Silver reports that even part of his base seems to be eroding: Theres been a considerable decline in the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump, from a peak of around 30 percent in February to just 21 or 22 percent of the electorate now.

The Republican Congress (and its own dismal approval rating) only complicates matters.

All of its members were duly elected, too. Most of those senators and representatives ran on platforms that clash bigly with Trump on immigration, trade, foreign policy, or some other vital matter. (The GOPs primary electorate may have rejected Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz as presidents; but voters in Florida, Kentucky, and Texas Senate races chose them, even as voters in House Speaker Paul Ryans district chose him over a Trumpian challenger.)

At times, divides among Republicans are as sharp as their disagreements with Democrats, as Americans have witnessed watching GOP attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare. Doing so has proved so difficult in large part because both Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress were long unwilling to level with the public about the tradeoffs that must be made to reshape the health-care system.

They promised a costless improvement on Obamacare.

Trumps inconsistent rhetoric on health care and his preferences on infrastructure spending sometimes seem to align with Democrats more strongly than with those of Republicansand little surprise, given his previous incarnations as a registered Democrat, his donations to Democrats, and the praise he once lavished on the Clintons. But Democratic legislators will have a hard time compromising with Trump even on matters where their beliefs overlap, given how fully he has alienated the partys base with the charge that Obama is a secret Kenyan, the claim that Mexico is sending us rapists, and the boast that famous men are able to grab women by their genitals without asking.

Some conservatives are similarly unwilling to support Trump because they believe his glaring defects in character and judgment outweigh any policy agreements. And internal disagreements within both political parties are likely to go unresolved so long as Trump is in office because his polarizing quality has only intensified the degree to which American politics is now composed of people driven by their antagonism to other factions more than by their attraction to any positive agenda for the country.

Trump began his tenure by suggesting that a country so divided would be failing. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity, he declared in his inaugural address. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable. The ensuing months have confirmed what was evident at the time: America will never be united under Trump, a divisive man who cannot even unite his own party behind a coherent agenda.

A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions, he declared. But as long as he is president, tens of millions will rightly or wrongly regard him as a stain on Americas character and regard his tenure as a national shame.

Those are the stark political realities that the Trump administration and the GOP Congress will keep facing, even if resolution comes in the Russia investigation, the still-hidden tax returns, Trump family profits from foreign dealings, the leaky White House, and the national-security officials who mistrust their commander in chief. While those realities persist, America will prove unable to solve most of the significant problems that confront it at home or abroad. It is a handicap of our own making.

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Republicans Are a Majority Without a Mandate - The Atlantic

The medias big problem right now is that everyone in the country knows how theyd be covering yesterdays shooting if the parties were reversed.

Progressive Democratic activist James Hodgkinson spent years on social media and in local and national politics focusing on his hatred of Republican politicians. On Wednesday, he went after a group of Republican politicians as they practiced baseball in the early morning, shooting a member of the Republican leadership, two capitol police, a legislative aide, and a lobbyist. Rep. Steve Scalise remains in critical condition.

Hodgkinsons social media trail and the accounts of neighbors leave no question that the man was politically engaged, aligned with progressives, and upset with Republicans.

Some media coverage of the incident has been fine, if restrained. The media have not chosen to make this shooting a referendum on leftist political violence, on the use of extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theorizing by major mainstream media, on the dangers of the resistance movement. There has been no rush to introspection.

Some media treatment has been disgusting. The New York Times ran an editorial that is dangerously dishonest.

Before we discuss it, we should reflect on the 2011 Tucson shooting in which a deranged man shot up a Gabby Giffords political rally, killing six and injuring another 18. Despite the fact that the man was extremely mentally ill, obsessed with Giffords, and not conventionally political, the media immediately leaped to the conclusion that conservative rhetoric had led him to shoot Giffords. There was no evidence to support the idea initially, and the false claims were disproven with time.

The day after the shooting, the Times editorial board wrote that Jared Lee Loughner is very much a part of a widespread squall of fear, anger and intolerance that has produced violent threats against scores of politicians and infected the political mainstream with violent imagery. It said that opponents of Obamacare were threatening members of Congress, and mentioned an effigy of a Democratic representative hung outside a district office.

It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madmans act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.

That was what the New York Times wrote when a man who believed that the government practices mind control through grammar shot up Giffords rally.

Sarah Palin came in for particular condemnation by the media. Why? Well, although there is literally zero evidence that Jared Loughner ever saw it, Palins political action committee had drawn a map that targeted certain congressional seats for campaigns. The map showed gun sights on the congressional districts that donors were supposed to focus on. While military campaign technology is common for political campaigns, the media pretended that this was somehow in part responsible for Loughners shooting.

Andrew Sullivan, then at the The Atlantic, wrote No one is saying Sarah Palin should be viewed as an accomplice to murder. Many are merely saying that her recklessly violent and inflammatory rhetoric has poisoned the discourse and has long run the risk of empowering the deranged. We are saying its about time someone took responsibility for this kind of rhetorical extremism, because it can and has led to violence and murder.

Writing in The New York Times, Matt Bai said Palin and others used imagery of armed revolution. Popular spokespeople like Ms. Palin routinely drop words like tyranny and socialism when describing the president and his allies, as if blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms.

MSNBC used a graphic that said Power of Words with an image of Loughner, suggesting that conservative rhetoric was responsible for the shooting.

And The New York Times Paul Krugman wrote Climate of Hate, a column blaming Republicans and conservatives for creating a climate of violence in which Giffords was shot. He said Republicans needed to take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal showed the significant problems with this general media talking point at the time, and its worth a review.

Now its 2017. Weve seen months of street protests, many of them violent. Antifa protests have involved torched cars and buildings, and physical confrontations. Weve seen parades shut down rather than let Republicans march in them. There have been acts of serious violence against Trump supporters. Media messages about Republican policies are continued variations on the theme that Republican policies will literally destroy the planet, enslave women, or kill sick people. Media messages on Donald Trump include conspiracy theories that he is a Russian stooge committing treason, or simply suggest that he needs to be removed from his duly elected office by whatever means.

Okay. Now lets go toThe New York Times editorial in response to Wednesdays shooting:

Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palins political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.

Conservatives and right-wing media were quick on Wednesday to demand forceful condemnation of hate speech and crimes by anti-Trump liberals. Theyre right. Though theres no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack, liberals should of course hold themselves to the same standard of decency that they ask of the right.

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Are you mother-bleeping kidding me, New York Times? This is an insane couple of paragraphs.

For starters, it is a completely indefensible falsehood to state that the link to political incitement was clear in the Giffords shooting. It wasnt clear when media personalities falsely claimed that in 2011, but after a thorough review of the evidence showing Loughners mental illness and general lack of traditional political engagement, its an error that boggles the mind now.

To still blame Palin for something completely unrelated shows a level of derangement that is honestly quite worrisome. Since the Times knows its not true that the map played a role in the shooting, it is discrediting to state otherwise. This is the very picture of fake news, at a time when media outlets are claiming they are paragons of virtue and truth-telling. The New York Times ran an ad during the Oscars saying the truth is hard, but its not that hard to avoid saying false things that you know to be false.

The last line includes two doozies. Its simply false to say that theres no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack. Hodgkinson is responsible for his own behavior, even if he was in a political environment that has pushed the idea that Republicans are illegitimate holders of power. Unlike Loughner, Hodgkinsons local media reports and social media record paint a picture of a man who was highly political.

His social media showed that he liked or was a member of groups such as Dump Trump, Liar, Liar Republican Campaign on Fire, Stop the Obstructionist Tea Party, Just Say No to Republicans, Republicans ARE the Problem, Stop the Speaker, No More Republicans, Hey Republicans.Shut up!, Hate All Republican Douches (H.A.R.D.), Fire the Republican Government, Republicans are stupid, Republicans Suck, Americans Against The Republican Party, Fight the Right, The Republican Party Makes Me Sick, Expose Republican Fraud, Terminate the Republican Party, and The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans. He followed politicians and celebrities such as John Oliver, Bill Maher, and Seth MacFarlane, who use extreme rhetoric against Republicans.

Bai said spokespeople who use words like tyranny when describing politicians shouldnt be blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms. Well if thats true, what in the world should Americans do in response to the non-stop mainstream media and Democratic narrative that Republicans are enabling an existential threat to the country by not resisting the duly elected president and legislating destruction of people and the planet when they enact their policy goals?

The second doozie is the claim that liberals should of course hold themselves to the same standard of decency that they ask of the right.Varad Mehta described the editorial as the Platonic form of a Times editorial: hypocrisy, double-standards, duplicity, and moral obtuseness. He wrote of the line about decency, No one who actually believes this wouldve published such an abominable editorial. So clearly the NYT doesnt.

The New York Times in this very editorial shows that its standard is to blame Republicans for violence against Democrats when there is no relationship of any Republican to that violence, and to blame Republicans for violence against Republicans when the perpetrator is a progressive Democratic activist.

As Guy Benson put it:

How is this newspaper held in any regard when it willfully and gratuitously publishes malicious lies about Republican politicians six years after they knew they were wrong?

And what can be done when the most revered of the liberal papers is engaged in Stalinesque rewriting of history to suit the purposes of its propaganda?

See the original post here:
To New York Times, Bipartisanship Means Blaming GOP When Both Democrats And Republicans Are Shot - The Federalist

There was no ignoring the fact that Majority Whip Steve Scalise -- their energetic leader who was shot Wednesday and remained in critical condition -- wasn't there with them.

The conference meeting -- which typically gives members a chance to talk about policy-- transformed into a support group of sorts for members. Lawmakers signed poster board-sized cards for those who'd been shot and were recovering including the two Capitol Police officers who'd been injured in the line of duty. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pennsylvania, who is the only practicing psychologist in Congress, got up to help counsel Republicans on how they could cope with the aftermath and trauma of what had happened.

"Tim Murphy gave us some great clinical advice in kind of what to expect to go through, the various stages," said Rep. Mike Conaway, a Texas Republican. "The key will be to not be so hard-headed to not see what's happening and try to take advantage of the help ."

Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, delivered the opening prayer. His former staffer, now lobbyist, Matt Mika was among those shot Wednesday.

"It took on a little more significance than normal," said Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican.

Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina wore his "Scalise tie," which the Whip had given to all the members of the Whip team last year. The tie had little Capitols and flags on it. The back had Scalise's signature.

Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry , who probably works closer with Scalise than anyone in Congress, gave a moving speech on his colleague that included both touching and funny stories about the whip.

But members also had to deal with the practical implications of what had occurred. The conference also included a briefing from the Sergeant of Arms on security at the Capitol and beyond.

Members said that the hardest part of Thursday was that many were still replaying events in their minds.

"This guy had the ability to inflict a lot of harm and had the heroism of the Capitol Police not been there, who knows," said Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina who had left the practice before the shooting began.

At conference, some members who were present on the field stood up to tell their colleagues what had happened.

"I told them what it was like to be in there, be in that dugout with my teammates trying to stay alive and having my young man who works for me in my office who was shot, dive into the dugout into my arms. We were holding each other," said Rep. Roger Williams, a Republican from Texas.

The leadership also asked members to give the Scalise family their space. Members were told at this point, the best thing they could do would be to pray for their colleague and his family.

"They said just let the family have their peace," said Rep. Dave Brat, a Virginia Republican.

"I've seen this as a doc. Steve's the type of guy that if you went to visit him, he'd try to entertain you. That's not where his energy needs to be," Wenstrup said. "He needs to be there with the family, with the doctor and just let him get better."

Go here to read the rest:
Somber Republicans miss Scalise in first post-shooting meeting - CNN International

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that "yesterday's tragedy is an assault on all of us" in reference to Republican baseball team shooting during a weekly news conference on June 15, 2017. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

By Jake Lahut and Negassi Tesfamichael

06/15/2017 12:26 PM EDT

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lambasted Republicans on Thursday, calling some conservative lawmakers sanctimonious for blaming Democrats after Wednesdays shooting that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and several others wounded.

Coming just hours before the bipartisan congressional baseball game, Pelosi was somewhat hesitant when asked by reporters about the criticism of the left, in light of the shooting.

Story Continued Below

"I don't even want to go into the president of the United States in terms of the language he has used," Pelosi said.

Nevertheless, upon a follow-up question, Pelosi cited President Donald Trump's rhetoric as a problem in the national discourse.

If the president says, 'I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and nobody would care,' when you have somebody say, 'Beat them up and I'll pay their legal fees,' when you have all the assaults that are made on Hillary Clinton, the California representative said in her weekly news conference. For them to be so sanctimonious is something that I really am almost sad that I had to go down this path with you because I don't think it's appropriate for us to have the fullest discussion of it.

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Many on Capitol Hill have called for unity and a de-escalation of an increasingly hostile political discourse, however some Republicans have focused specifically on blaming Democrats since the shooting.

I can only hope that the Democrats do tone down the rhetoric, Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) told WBEN radio station Wednesday. The rhetoric has been outrageous the finger-pointing, just the tone and the angst and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters. Really, then, you know, some people react to things like that. They get angry as well. And then you fuel the fires.

Pelosi said the toxic political discourse stems back to the early 1990s.

Somewhere in the 1990s, Republicans decided on the politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons and that is the provenance of it, Pelosi said. And thats what has continued.

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House who led the efforts to impeach former President Bill Clinton, pointed to a tendency of demonizing Trump on the left as being a cause behind the shooting.

Youve had a series of things, which sends signals that tell people that its OK to hate Trump. Its OK [to] think of Trump in violent terms. Its OK to consider assassinating Trump and then ... suddenly, were supposed to rise above it until the next time? Gingrich said in an appearance on Fox News Wednesday.

Pelosi insisted at several points that she wanted to keep a full discussion of toxic rhetoric reserved for another day, and that this kind of bickering after a tragedy ultimately dissuades prospective candidates for higher office.

We want to attract [young people] to public service, Pelosi said. I don't think any of this discussion attracts anybody to public service, whether in terms of a noble calling or in terms of personal security.

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Day after shooting, Pelosi blasts 'sanctimonious' Republicans - Politico