Trump approval down to 33%, Republican Support is starting to crumble.

[Edge-]

Such as posting information about his properties on official dot-gov sites. Again.

Not surprised, and I fully expect the administration to continue to try to shill his and his families businesses through government channels any way they can.

[Dmitro]

How's that Obamacare repeal coming along?

Bad, disgusting so-called "republicans" including neocon Makkkcain ruined it. Sad!

[Breccia]

Bad, disgusting so-called "republicans" including neocon Makkkcain ruined it. Sad!

Incidentally, the Freedom Caucus is now considering a stabilization package. Not repeal and replace. Tax cuts to the rich appear to be center stage, though.

[Mormolyce]

Bad, disgusting so-called "republicans" including neocon Makkkcain ruined it. Sad!

Fucking Republicans, right?

Ahahahahaha!

[Dmitro]

Fucking Republicans, right?

Ahahahahaha!

I guess, they canceled must needed repeal, not Trump

[jugzilla]

Too many close minded and overly partisan liberals in USA + media bias + obvious witchhunt.

Gonna be 45+% within a year, mark my words.

Why do we feel the need to destroy our prophets! This man shared the future with you, and you banished him.

Trump approval 45%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...ez_track_aug11

While technically true, it tastes like beer that's been frozen, heated up, frozen, heated up, frozen heated up, froze...

There are several instances of people discounting my ideas due to my choice of beer. Next thing I know you guys are gonna start picking on the scotch I drink: Clan MacGregor.

How on earth can you make this statement with a straight face when Hillary won 3 million more votes?

Do you really believe our presidential elections are a referendum between liberal and conservative? I didn't see that option on the ballot.

And, sorry, but you're not "right". You're Far-Right. That's important because the number of Left and Right who both stand against your deplorable viewpoints outnumber your little breitbart coalition that's rapidly decreasing in numbers every day.

You got everyone all figured out and packaged and labeled dontcha? We really do need to look into comprehensive legislation addressing label guns. This guy seems have gotten ahold of one with assault capacity clips.

[Skroe]

THey're turning on each other. It begins.

[Glorious Leader]

THey're turning on each other. It begins.

Knives are always out in the trump world

[Lenonis]

Why do we feel the need to destroy our prophets! This man shared the future with you, and you banished him.

Trump approval 45%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...ez_track_aug11

lulz Rasmussen.

Do you really believe our presidential elections are a referendum between liberal and conservative? I didn't see that option on the ballot.

There is pretty much no metric that you can use to indicate that the left is "outnumbered". Unless you want to make the argument that a significant part of the right voted for democratic candidates in elections across the country. In which case I'll just laugh twice as hard at you for that as I did for you taking Rasmussen seriously.

[NYC17]

lulz Rasmussen.

There is pretty much no metric that you can use to indicate that the left is "outnumbered". Unless you want to make the argument that a significant part of the right voted for democratic candidates in elections across the country. In which case I'll just laugh twice as hard at you for that as I did for you taking Rasmussen seriously.

What's wrong with Rasmussen? If charging a subscription fee so people can see the numbers behind your polls while simultaneously declaring themselves an innovator of polling due to using online surveys to fluff up their results is wrong, they don't wanna be right!

[Ripster42]

There are several instances of people discounting my ideas due to my choice of beer. Next thing I know you guys are gonna start picking on the scotch I drink: Clan MacGregor.

I'm not discounting your ideas due to your choice of beer. I'm just dismissing your choice of beer. No complaints on the scotch front.

[Lenonis]

What's wrong with Rasmussen? If charging a subscription fee so people can see the numbers behind your polls while simultaneously declaring themselves an innovator of polling due to using online surveys to fluff up their results is wrong, they don't wanna be right!

I realize your question was tongue-in-cheek, but for the peanut gallery Rasmussen's polling methodology is terrible and (believed to be intentionally) skewed to the older demographics, which results in over-representation of GOP supporters.

[NYC17]

I realize your question was tongue-in-cheek, but for the peanut gallery Rasmussen's polling methodology is terrible and (believed to be intentionally) skewed to the older demographics, which results in over-representation of GOP supporters.

Unfortunately the nuts that need to take that and fully comprehend it are safely tucked away in their shells.

[Breccia]

THey're turning on each other. It begins.

It had already begun. This is mostly a summary piece about Trump's "barrage" against McConnell for failing to do the impossible (more people with better coverage for less money), but there is some new info.

Trump’s broadsides at McConnell, who spent three months negotiating legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare and came one vote short of sending a bill to conference, left McConnell’s allies dumbfounded.

“Trump’s reaction was way disproportionate,” said the source close to McConnell who requested anonymity to discuss the spat with Trump frankly.

While McConnell’s allies say Trump has reason to be frustrated over the Senate’s failure to pass healthcare legislation, venting his anger on McConnell makes no sense — if for no other reason than he needs him to pass other parts of his agenda.

“It was also a strategic blunder because no one is more important than McConnell to Trump’s agenda,” said the McConnell ally, who argued that Trump needs a savvy field general to get his agenda passed through the Senate, where the threshold for controversial bills is often 60 votes.

These allies note that McConnell delivered Trump’s biggest win since the election by holding open the Supreme Court seat left open by the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. McConnell also changed the Senate rules to confirm Neil Gorsuch, a conservative, to the seat.

McConnell’s camp thinks Trump blew the episode out of proportion, and some wonder if a Trump ally may have an ax to grind with the Senate leader.

“I don’t know if President Trump got bad advice from somebody or if somebody’s trying to portray it to him in a way that isn’t real,” Jennings said.

Still, some Republicans outside the Senate say Trump’s criticisms are justified.

“Maybe this will incentivize the leadership of the Senate to actually do something because they’ve put zero points on the board. The only thing the Senate leadership has done is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Other than that, they have done nothing,” said Brian Darling, a conservative Republican strategist and former Senate aide.

“Trump is 100 percent right to point at them and say they’re not doing their job,” he added. “They’re not even starting debate on infrastructure and tax reform.”

Conservative activists say the GOP base is furious over the failure to pass legislation repealing and replacing ObamaCare and that Trump is right to hold congressional leaders’ feet to the fire.

“Trump gets it and I don’t think the majority leader does,” said Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation.

“People who elected Trump didn’t elect somebody up there just to maintain the status quo. They wanted something done. If the Republicans don’t have something to show — the base is already not happy — the base will be furious,” he said.

...

Fox News host Sean Hannity called on Monday called McConnell “weak” and “spineless” and said he needs to retire.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, which opposed McConnell during his 2014 reelection, blasted a message to supporters on Wednesday asking them to urge GOP senators to take “immediate steps” to replace him as leader.

Conservative Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks has made “Ditch Mitch” the slogan in his bid to unseat incumbent Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.).

My opinion on the subject has not changed. Trump has done next to nothing on his own tax plan, his own infrastructure plan, his own Wall, his own budget, and his own health care plan. He campaigned for and ran on all of those. Now he's complaining that the Senate hasn't done these while golfing and tweeting on vacation.

- - - Updated - - -

I realize your question was tongue-in-cheek, but for the peanut gallery Rasmussen's polling methodology is terrible and (believed to be intentionally) skewed to the older demographics, which results in over-representation of GOP supporters.

And to further further peanuts, Rasmussen's results are consistently higher approval for Trump than even FOX News. Who has stopped posting their polls some time ago, probably out of shame.

- - - Updated - - -

This OP ED piece contains a lot we already know, including common sense.

There is a big underlying question here: To what extent will the Republican Senate, with Trump as president, act as a check on the White House; work as his governing partner but not necessarily follow his every edict; or largely do Trump’s bidding? The answer to that question has shifted over Trump’s first several months, and recently, Senate Republicans have seemed a lot less eager to just go along. Trump could be trying to make them think twice about abandoning him.

[Mormolyce]

I guess, they canceled must needed repeal, not Trump

By all accounts Trump was worse than useless in the internal debates. Apparently he'd come into the room where they were discussing it and set the talks back hours with his off-topic rambling and general ignorance.

[jugzilla]

lulz Rasmussen.

There is pretty much no metric that you can use to indicate that the left is "outnumbered". Unless you want to make the argument that a significant part of the right voted for democratic candidates in elections across the country. In which case I'll just laugh twice as hard at you for that as I did for you taking Rasmussen seriously.

Yeah yeah. Handwave any data that makes you uncomfortable. I would like to note that my linking of that poll was in response to a direct line of conversation pertaining to the original topic. I did not link that survey as proof that the US is a center right country. Which we are.

I'm not discounting your ideas due to your choice of beer. I'm just dismissing your choice of beer. No complaints on the scotch front.

I'll drink to that.

[Breccia]

Trump spent today proving why his numbers drop. There's a whole thread on the American Nazis and KKK rally that turned violent and ended with tragic loss of life. In that thread, there's a lot of discussion about Trump's apparent inability to condemn American Nazis and the KKK, even when one of them runs a car into a crowd, injuring a couple dozen and murdering a human being. There was hatred, bigotry, and violence "on many sides", said Trump, something basically everyone picked up on. Not even Paul Ryan is letting that one go.

But in the well-deserved outrage, another bit got by.

But Chartlottesville sad.

Choosing to run your policy, attack your enemies, communicate with your base and apparently even direct the military with 140 characters might sound like a dumb idea -- because it is. But it's also leads to moments like this one, where Trump's 5th-grade grammar and sentence structure is even further hampered by his desire to push a positive message, making it all about him, even when tragedy strikes in the United States.



That's right. Trump chose to push what he was doing with V.A. -- sorry, what other people were doing for V.A. that he was taking credit for as "record setting business" of two billion dollars to extend a part of the Choice program for six whole months, neither number is a record and the program was started in 2014 thanks Obama -- urgh.

ANYWAY.

Trump chose to push the V.A. bill, trying to push out that agenda, which in any other situation, yeah, go for it. He ran on veterans, this emergency funding bill is a small step in that direction, our veterans are important, that part itself not the problem. He chose to push this news out the door...and then tacked on that message.

But Charlottesville sad.

He couldn't have waited 24 hours. Or let his other tweets handle it, including the one where he denounces American Nazis and the KKK...oh right, he didn't have one of those. Or, you know, put it in the press conference the tweet mentioned. Those things aren't limited to 140 characters, and he probably could have had a statement prepared. Or said "You know what? A city just down the street from here" Sorry, I forgot, he's golfing in New Jersey "a city on this coast was ravaged by hatred, bigotry, and violence. Maybe that should get its own separate focus, announcements, that sort of thing. Maybe it deserves more attention than the few remaining characters I have in this mostly-full tweet."

Nope. Afterthought. Squeezed into an objectively political statement.

I am sure the brave men and women who lost two of their own today, and the Virginia residents who aren't American Nazis or the KKK will take some small comfort in the coming days that, for a few characters at least, after he was done making it about him, when he could squeeze them in, Trump's words were with them. And maybe when they see three words were dedicated to them, his poll numbers might even go up a bit.

But not tonight. Tonight, but Charlottesville sad.

- - - Updated - - -

The cracks get wider.

Trump suspects Bannon behind WH leaks: report

President Trump reportedly suspects that his chief strategist Stephen Bannon is behind some White House leaks about fellow staffers, according to a new report by Axios.

Sources told Axios that West Wing staff believe Bannon was behind leaks about National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and that Bannon's job could be in danger.

According to the report, Trump has been "irritated" with Bannon following a series of Breitbart reports targeting McMaster. Bannon was formerly the executive chairman of Breitbart.

There is no clear connection, however, linking Bannon to such reports.

rump has long decried leaks of sensitive information to media, such as specifics of his Oval Office conversations with world leaders earlier this year, as well as details surrounding the palace intrigue around the White House.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a government-wide crackdown on leakers on Friday, including a review of Justice Department policies on subpoenas for media outlets that publish such sensitive information.

Many also expect that chief of staff John Kelly will help crack down on leaks.

White House aide Sebastian Gorka sent a warning to West Wing staff last week about leaking information, saying not to mess with Kelly.

"This is John F. Kelly. This is a man you do not toy with," Gorka said during an appearance on "Fox and Friends."

"He will get to the bottom of the leaks," Gorka added at the time.

Team Trump has been trying to go after leaks hard, led by Sessions (who had nothing better to do until yesterday). If it is true, that Bannon really is leaking, man, that's going to be fucking hilarious.

[Resurgo]

6th grade leap in logic.

Considering that most of McMaster's negative press is on Breitbart, and Bannon owns Breitbart...

[Lenonis]

Yeah yeah. Handwave any data that makes you uncomfortable.

I didn't "handwave". I clearly explained earlier why Rasmussen isn't a credible poll. Not my fault if you didn't read it.

I did not link that survey as proof that the US is a center right country. Which we are.

We need to get an agreement about whether we are going to use global political scale to measure the US, or the US political scale. Because people asserting that the right outnumber the left are using the US political scale since the arguments are made to support Trump or the GOP agenda.

Some people may be using the global scale to assert that leftists are outnumbered in the US -- but that argument doesn't have any application then since then you have to operate within US politics to discuss how that matters.

[Breccia]

McMaster was asked if he could continue working with Bannon. He refused to answer.