Norman Ornstein, Congressional scholar, political scientist and resident scholar of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, has never said or published what most people who are employed by that interest group usually produce.
He has long been condemnatory of how the Congress has deteriorated in its approach to its responsibilities. He has been bitterly critical of the extremism that has taken over both the House of Representatives and US Senate. He is known for blistering critiques of Congress and how it operates.
It is a disgrace how both bodies of Congress operate, but the US Senate is particularly a train wreck under Republican control, promoting mismanagement and corruption, and now in the process of passing a disastrous tax bill that will make the wealthy wealthier, and harm everyone else, and add dramatically to the national debt.
Mitch McConnell and his party in the Senate, along with Paul Ryan and his party in the House, have abused their power, and are voting on legislation without full knowledge of what is in it, and changing details to please certain party members, without an understanding of the short and long range effect on the American economy.
The Republican Party has become the party of evil, deserving of massive repudiation by the voters in 2018 and 2020, but the question is whether those who vote for the Republican Party without a clue or knowledge of their agenda will finally understand that the voting for the GOP is a bargain with the devil, voting for people with no principles except their own self aggrandizement without conscience of what it is doing to millions of senior citizens, disabled and sick, and struggling middle class and poor people, in the name of greed and selfishness.
This headline perfectly sums up this week’s news: Flynn Flips, Senate Republicans Flop
https://bpicampus.com/2017/12/02/flynn-flips-senate-republicans-flop/
Our dumb dumb “president” admitted that he committed obstruction of justice on Twitter.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-twitter-obstruction-justice-2af99c5629f6/
There’s also this:
Newly revealed email from Trump transition could be the smoking gun. A paper trail reportedly shows the Trump team sought to reward Russia for its help electing Trump.
https://thinkprogress.org/newly-revealed-email-from-trump-transition-could-be-the-smoking-gun-c97c4fcda2b3/
How the Republicans Broke Congress
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/opinion/sunday/republicans-broke-congress-politics.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
(Correct. Which is why I find it so annoying to hear Democratic candidates talking about how the “political class†or “political system†generically are broken, how the answer is a “new generation of leadership†or whatever. That has absolutely ZERO to do with what’s actually been happening, which is a relentless Republican assault on our democracy, government, rule of law, etc.)
I second that Rustbelt.
Another reason be against the NRA:
New email suggests Russia tried to use NRA to build relationship with Trump campaign.
https://thinkprogress.org/russia-nra-trump-7d24fd971566/
Our Sexual Predator-in-Chief fully endorsed Roy Moore this morning on Twitter, saying that the lawless bigot and sexual predator will cut taxes bigly on the rich and corporations while telling immigrants that they are the real problem.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/trump-moore-endorsement-twitter/index.html
The more and more news that leaks out about Trump and the Russians, the more and more it reinforces to me, and most of the millions who didn’t vote for him, that he’s not a legit president.
December 4, 2017 has Gallup reporting 45th U.S. president Donald Trump’s job-approval rating is at 35 percent.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/223253/snapshot-trump-approval-tied-lowest-weekly-average.aspx
From the report: “Republicans’ approval of Trump has been at 78% in each of the three weeks he averaged 35% approval.… Democrats’ approval rating for Trump remains in the single digits, at 7% last week, while independents’ approval is at 32%.…â€
Those numbers set up 2018 being highly likely a very bad midterm year for the president’s political party, the Republican Party.
Donald Trump would be in the 20s if it weren’t for that 78 percent approval specifically from those saying they are Republicans.
To have have self-identified independents approving just 32 percent for Trump means their two-party votes, in the midterms of 2018, will likely be more with the Democratic Party. Generally, that is. And if another likelihood of more Democrats turn out to vote than Republicans, that sets up a Democratic pickup of the U.S. House, with the U.S. Senate flippable but still a tossup, a Democratic pickup for the majority count of states’ governorships.
One more thing to note: The U.S. House was flipped Republican in 1994, flipped Democratic in 2006, and flipped Republican in 2010. That means 20 of 24 years covering the full years of 1995 to 2018 are cumulative Republican majorities. (The Democrats had the four full years of 2007 to 2010.) These specific years, for the Republicans, are also timed with the periods for both parties’s majorities with the states’ governorships.
Speaking of poll numbers, people identifying as Republicans has seen a downward trend since Trump became prez.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/republican-party-id-most-important-number/index.html
The RNC has changed its mind and is now backing Sex Predator for Congress Roy Moore.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/on-second-thought-rnc-will-back-alleged-predator-roy-moore.html