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Berlin has accused Washington of interfering in German internal affairs, after Donald Trump signed off on US sanctions against companies building a Russian natural gas pipeline to Germany.

"The Federal Government rejects such extraterritorial sanctions," Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman, said in Berlin on Saturday.

They affect German and European companies and constitute an interference in our domestic affairs."

The US is an outspoken opponent of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will transport natural gas about 750 miles from Russia, through the Baltic Sea and into Germany.

The sanctions will hit any company working with Russias state-owned Gazprom to complete the project.

On Saturday, Switzerland-based Allseas, which operates ships laying sections of the undersea pipeline, said it was suspending work on the 8.5 billion project, which is well advanced.

Washington and Eastern European countries oppose the project because it will increase the EUs heavy dependence on Russian gas imports.

The pipeline will double Russian energy imports into Germany and, the US fears, give the Kremlin leverage over the EU and its leading economy.

See the rest here:
Berlin outraged after Donald Trump hits gas pipeline project with sanctions - The Telegraph

Troops' opinion of Trump heads down A new Military Times survey of active duty troops reveals that President Trump's favorability among service members continues to slide. Approval of the president's performance has been on the decline since the initial poll in 2016. While his numbers remain higher than President Obama's, he lost ground among many subsets in 2019.

President Donald Trump received a loud ovation when he participated in the coin toss ahead of Saturdays Army-Navy football rivalry game in Philadelphia. But troops actual feelings about the commander in chief appear much more ambivalent in the latest Military Times survey.

Half of active-duty military personnel contacted in the poll held an unfavorable view of President Trump, showing a continued decline in his approval rating since he was elected in 2016.

Trumps 42 percent approval in the latest poll, conducted from Oct. 23 to Dec. 2, sets his lowest mark in the survey since being elected president. Some 50 percent of troops said they had an unfavorable view of him. By comparison, just a few weeks after his electoral victory in November 2016, 46 percent of troops surveyed had a positive view of the businessman-turned-politician, and 37 percent had a negative opinion.

But the latest numbers still leave Trump with a higher approval rating than former President Barack Obama when he left office in January 2017.

The numbers also show that Trump remains slightly more popular in the military community than among the American public as a whole. The latest Gallup poll had the presidents disapproval rating among the public at 54 percent, and his approval at 43 percent.

The poll surveyed 1,630 active-duty Military Times subscribers in partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University. The numbers likely reflect a more career-minded subset of the military than the force as a whole, according to Peter Feaver, a former White House adviser to former President George W. Bush who is now a political science professor at Duke University.

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These are people for whom the morals and standards of the military mean a lot, he said. The president has criticized those same career workers in the State Department and other agencies. So, its possible they are more likely to be offended by the president than other parts of the military.

Still, Feaver said, the drop in Trumps popularity in the poll (conducted with the same parameters over the past four years) indicates growing dissatisfaction with Trump and his handling of several military issues.

When asked specifically about Trumps handling of military issues, nearly 48 percent of the troops surveyed said they had an unfavorable view of that part of his job, compared to 44 percent who believe he has handled that task well. That marks a significant drop from the 2018 Military Times poll, when 59 percent said they were happy with his handling of military issues, against 20 percent who had an unfavorable view.

In the time since the 2018 poll, Trump fired his popular former defense secretary, retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis. Trump also ordered a controversial and sudden withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, and became the subject of impeachment hearings in the House over the delay of military assistance funding to Ukraine.

Also, in the days before the poll closed in December, Trump made the controversial decision to grant clemency to three warfighters accused of war crimes, a move that was opposed by many military leaders at the Pentagon.

Over time, as the president has been involved with more controversial things connected to the military whether its the border wall or the pardons or the way that Secretary Mattis left that has changed the view of him, said retired Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, who worked as a department spokesman during both the administrations of Trump and Obama.

And theyve seen more indications that he hasnt been a great commander in chief. So, theyre moving closer to where the rest of the public is.

Similar to past surveys, this poll showed significant gaps in views of the president among various subsets of the military.

Trump is far more popular with enlisted service members than with officers. Among the enlisted force, the recent survey showed a 43 percent favorable rating. For officers, however, only one-third responded with a positive view.

Military men appear to be more supportive of Trump compared to military women. Among men, the survey shows a 43 percent favorable view, while among women service members, 53 percent of women expressed a very unfavorable rating of Trump and 56 percent responded negatively.

The survey also shows a gap among white and non-white service members. Among whites, 46 percent of troops had a favorable view of the president, versus 45 percent with an unfavorable view. Yet among non-white service members nearly two-thirds responded with a negative view of him.

Some of the shift in military sentiments could be linked to the firing of Mattis, who a year after his dismissal still enjoys an exceptionally high 86 percent favorability rating among all service members in the poll.

Trumps replacement for Mattis, current Defense Secretary Mark Esper, does not inspire strong feelings one way or the other. Esper drew a 24 percent approval rating from troops and a 20 percent disapproval rating, with 56 percent saying they have no strong opinion of the Pentagon leader.

Troops surveyed by Military Times offered generally upbeat assessments of Trumps steps in Afghanistan (59 percent said they approve of plans to negotiate with the Taliban and reduce troop levels there) and his promises to intervene less overseas (47 percent believe he will keep U.S. forces out of another major military conflict).

Yet 58 percent of those polled said they disapprove of Trumps decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria in the face of Turkish military advances.

When asked about Trumps decision to use military construction funds to build his controversial southern border wall, 59 percent said they disapprove of his decision. More than half rated current U.S. relations with traditional allies like NATO as poor.

Lapan said he thinks those topics have had more resonance with troops than some of the controversies early in Trumps presidency, like his public spats with former prisoner of war Sen. John McCain.

His comments with McCain were upsetting to a lot of folks, but it was probably more in the senior ranks, he said. For junior troops, Mattis is much more popular. And these other decisions affect them. So they are changing their minds more.

Troops were split evenly on the ongoing impeachment proceedings in Congress. In the poll, 47 percent said they back the impeachment, 46 percent said they were opposed. Thats roughly the same breakdown as the rest of the American public.

Feaver called that an interesting and potentially problematic finding, given that Trump will still be commander in chief if he is impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.

Im sure senior leaders wont be happy seeing that half of them wanted him impeached, given the efforts to keep troops out of politics," Feaver said.

More than three-fourths of troops surveyed said they believe the military community has become more polarized in recent years, with about 40 percent saying they have seen significantly more division in the ranks.

Still more popular than Obama

Military and veteran voters overwhelmingly backed Trump in the 2016 election, according to exit polls. And even with the dip in his popularity shown in the recent Military Times poll, Trumps support among troops remains higher than his predecessor when he left office.

When Obama left office in January 2017, a Military Times poll showed that 52 percent of troops had a negative opinion of him, against 36 percent with a positive opinion.

As negative as some of the views are in the poll toward Trump, they have not yet reached the levels of disapproval voiced by troops in the final military survey before Obama left office.

Then, service members blasted the Obamas decision to decrease military personnel (71 percent said end strength needed to grow after years of decreases) and questioned his moves to withdraw combat troops from Iraq (59 percent say it made America less safe).

In the latest poll, respondents identifying themselves as conservative (about one-third of the total) still outnumbered the liberals (almost one-quarter) by a significant margin.

And the poll shows a subtle shift toward more service members identifying as political independents, who now make up 45 percent of respondents, an uptick of 3 percent compared to the 2018 survey.

This years survey saw an increase in the number of Democrats (about 3 percent more) and a decrease in the number of those who considered themselves members of the Republican or Libertarian parties (about 7 percent less, combined) from the 2018 survey.

Feaver said that breakdown may be more indicative of the Military Times readership than changes in the whole of the military. But he also said that the findings give an important insight into the armed forces that few other polls can reach.

Its a useful thermometer of that segment of the military that is more career-minded, he said.

We know the military tends to follow the general public but lag conservative. We know that Trump is not as popular with the general public as he has been, and that he hasnt really built upon his base. Now were seeing that reflected in the military, too.

The annual Military Times readers survey is one of the only public metrics that evaluate the personal views of service members.

Defense Department does not conduct any public opinion polls on political issues and has significant restrictions on media access to service members for their personal opinions.

Between Oct. 23 and Dec. 2, Military Times in collaboration with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University conducted a voluntary, confidential online survey of U.S. service members. Poll participants are readers of Military Times publications whose military status is verified through official Defense Department email addresses.

The survey included 28 questions on service members opinions related to the current political climate, policy and national security in the United States.

The survey received 1,630 responses from active-duty troops. The IVMF used standard methodology to weight the results according to the rank, gender and service branch of the actual U.S. military. The margin of error for most questions was roughly 2 percent.

Like most studies where participation is voluntary, the polls sample is subject to self-selection bias. Researchers sought to account for that and adhered to generally accepted scientific practices analyzing the data.

The survey audience was 92 percent male and 8 percent female. The respondents identified themselves as 75 percent white, 14 percent Hispanic, 13 percent African American, 5 percent Asian and 5 percent other ethnicities. Respondents were able to select more than one race.

The Military Times and the researchers at IVMF have used identical methodologies for this survey since 2016.

View original post here:
Half of active-duty service members are unhappy with Trump, new Military Times poll shows - Military Times

Over the past year, President Donald Trump has talked and talked and talked. He has talked at photo ops at the White House. He has talked at impromptu press conferences while abroad. He has talked at campaign event after campaign event.

And I have watched or read it all -- poring over the transcripts to find the most, um, notable quotes. Below, we've gathered the best of the best -- or worst of the worst, depending on your point of view -- lines of 2019.

The President celebrated the new year with a 90+ minute Cabinet meeting -- and cameras were rolling the entire time. He answered question after question as his Cabinet sat silently.

The President of the United States offers his thoughts on Syria.

This is so revealing. All of life is a casting call for Trump. These generals were good because they were good looking and strong. Even more than Tom Cruise!

"Computer boards."

"Computer boards."

Is that how that goes? The buck stops with everybody? (Remember: Trump hardly ever takes the blame for anything -- especially the things that are his fault.)

11. "I was obviously a good candidate. I won every debate. I won everything I did, and I won, and I won easily."

When Trump said this, the 2016 election had ended 797 days ago.

Trump's response here to a question on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg following her illness was -- dare I say it -- presidential.

Trump on the global situation: America 🙂 Rest of world 🙁

"The Pocahontas Trap?" Is that a Disney flick?

In this quote from Trump's interview on CBS News before this year's Super Bowl, Trump questioned his intelligence community's assessment of Iran. Worth nothing: His "intelligence people" didn't say Iran was a kindergarten, they simply said they believed the country to be in compliance with the nuclear deal Trump pulled out of in May 2018.

The Mueller report hadn't come out yet.

Donald Trump on North Korea. Yup!

Donald Trump and Texas sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love then comes ... ah, you know the rest.

There's so much here. First, Trump was comparing his rally to the Academy Awards because of the amount of press that was covering it. (But I thought he hated the media?) Then he's saying that the Oscars, like everything else, aren't as good as they used to be. And finally, he is attributing the decline of the Oscars to the fact that some of the actors have taken shots at him. He truly contains multitudes.

This an unedited "sentence" from the President of the United States. Someday.

When a protester interrupts a speech, that's when Trump's real bullying tendencies emerge.

Remember: Trump views himself as an entertainer first and everything else second. So his measure of success is whether people are having fun.

Oh, that is rich. Important note: Donald Trump made over 8,000 false or misleading claims in his first two years in office, according to The Washington Post's Fact Checker. By October 2019, that number had risen to 13,435.

Trump has already said, repeatedly, that "Keep America Great" is his preferred 2020 slogan. Also, he's been running for a second term since the day he won in 2016.

In which Donald Trump claims to have invented the word "caravan."

Yup. He said this.

Words fail.

This is not edited. He really said these sentences back-to-back.

So, the President was declaring a national emergency on the southern US border because "we have to do it," not because he said we had to do it on the campaign trail. But ask yourself this: If it was such an emergency, why did Trump wait more than two years into his term to declare it one?

Important thing to always remember about Trump: Nothing is ever his fault. He is always the undeserving victim of other peoples' malice, incompetence or both.

(Trump while taking questions). ABC > NBC. But, IT'S CLOSE!

"Now I do politics." -- The President of the United States

Wait, so former President Barack Obama told Trump he was planning a "big" war against North Korea? Interesting! I am sure that conversation happened exactly as Trump said it did!

Ah, those rich -- and dusty -- days. Man, they were great. Tough on the allergies. But great.

It IS true. Voters seemed to believe that Trump's often rambling, hard-to-understand speeches.

"When the wind stop blowing, that's the end of your electric." -- The President of the United States. (Also, Trump is mocking the "Green New Deal" here.)

Trump has even turned his infamous love for cursing into some sort of anti-elites mantra. Amazing.

I assume Trump is referring to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russia probe. Or maybe former FBI Director James Comey for launching the probe. Or deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for forming a special counsel to look into it. Maybe all of the above. Either way: It's total bullshit!

Agreed. How else does anyone watch "Succession?" (Also, Trump may have gotten a *little* off-topic during his CPAC speech.)

Trump is talking about why he is speaking for so long and so far off-script. It's because of love, obviously.

From good to great in two sentences: The life of Donald Trump.

Trump was in Iraq to meet with generals. His first thought? Bring in the cameras. Let's make a movie.

So, Trump is saying he deserves credit for the 2018 midterm election! The same 2018 election in which Republicans suffered a near-total loss: Democrats made a net gain of 39 seats in the House, picked up 7 governor's mansions and hundreds of seats in state legislatures across the country.

Republicans DID win the Senate, and those 32 "big, fat rallies" probably helped -- but with 26 Democratic seats up for reelection and only nine for Republicans, the 2018 Senate map was one that Republicans should have capitalized on -- not just survived.

He is totally and completely obsessed with crowds. And crowds staying. And loving him. This feels like a good place to end the CPAC portion of our tour.

So, if Trump wasn't president, we would be running on wind power right now? Also, he's right -- the wind does "only blow sometimes."

So, if Hillary Clinton was president right now, we'd have no oil or gas. Just wind. And you know the wind "only blows sometimes."

Why did Trump suddenly out of nowhere start talking about his potential 2020 opponents? Oh, I have no idea. But the crowd LOVED it.

It's fascinating that Trump understands the job of being president as getting lots of people to show up to rallies.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States! Whether on "The Apprentice" or pushing his NAFTA replacement, you have to admit Trump has a flair for salesmanship.

Honestly, same.

You got hammered with a hurricane. But that's over now. And I am here now. Like, that's literally what he is saying here.

"That's Puerto Rico and they don't like me." -- Donald Trump, literally 10 seconds before he said this.

This is a classic Trump pitch -- and it's at the core of his appeal: Trump and other "regular" people are in a cultural war against "elites" in government, media and everywhere else.

What's that? You're right! It is strange that a billionaire who never lived outside of New York City before he moved to the White House has successfully become the voice of the common man.

The super elite: The elite, but with bigger houses. And boats.

Remember that Trump's natural state is as a bully. it's where he's best and most comfortable.

Trump is referring to the surveillance of a former aide -- Carter Page -- as part of the FBI's counterintelligence probe into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election. And this "spying" was totally lawful -- approved by a FISA court and re-approved three times. Just saying.

Wait, being president is hard? I had never thought of that!

Totally responsible rhetoric here from the President of the United States! Very normal! (Side note: I couldn't find the article Trump read that said "everybody's being stabbed.")

A real, unedited sentence from the President of the United States.

... said the President of the United States about the speaker of the US House while in a foreign country -- and with thousands of grave markers in the background of his TV shot.

"If I made any statement about anybody it would be like a big headline, why would he do that when he's overseas?" -- Donald Trump, literally two minutes before saying this.

In which Trump suggests that the Queen of England has never had a better time -- ever -- than she did hanging out with him over the past few days.

In sum: Tariffs are beautiful. But only when you are a piggy bank. And have "all the money."

Trump 2020 slogan: Won't get fooled again!

French wine is great.

Wait, people walk around in $2 billion undershirts? Or they don't? Either way -- our geniuses are better than China's geniuses, I guess?

Be best.

In any normal presidency, this would be a news story for a week. The President of the United States accusing the opposition party of committing "many crimes"!??! Without evidence, to boot! But because Trump says things like this -- again, with zero evidence -- all the time, it barely causes a ripple.

Me in 8th grade: "I DO SO have a girlfriend. She's a model and she totally loves me. You can't meet her. She lives in Montana. She writes me every day. But the letters are private."

Melania T. has a nice ring to it! Trump was talking, by the way, about his decision to redo Air Force One because he didn't like the "baby blue" color picked by First Lady Jackie Kennedy.

OK. So, Point 1: Trump doesn't believe in pollsters. Point 2: He just met with a pollster and he is "winning everywhere." THIS ALL MAKES SENSE TO ME!!!!

Truly stunning stuff here. What Trump, who is, reminder, the President of the United States, seems to fail to grasp is that a foreign county would almost certainly have a motive for passing along negative information about Trump's opponent.

This explanation is the best one I've seen about why Trump uses Twitter so much. He loves to be able to drive news cycles -- even if the news cycle is unfavorable to him. The power to do it is intoxicating to him -- someone who spent his whole life trying to get coverage for himself from what he believed to be a biased media. Now, he can make the news with a single tweet. And he loves it.

Nobody? Ever? [Consults first page of any history book ever.]

This is accurate -- especially if your definition of "treated supposedly very badly" is "was assassinated."

This seems to suggest that Trump doesn't believe Kim is a bad guy -- and that many of the reports of the atrocities by Kim are, uh, "fake news?"

My college jazz fusion band was named "Instantaneously Wealthy Behemoth."

First, Trump is saying his record of appointing federal judges is behind only that of America's first president. Second: "Your favorite president, Donald Trump."

If you are looking for an encapsulation of why Trump won in 2016 -- and why he could win again in 2020 -- this is it. This is Trump at his anti-elite, populist best -- railing against a system that he argues hates and disdains the average person.

Pretty low-stakes then, right?

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is no dummy. He knows that the way to Trump's heart is through flattery and obsequiousness. Hence, a "beautiful" birthday card.

Zero subtlety from Trump here when it comes to suggesting that Biden has something wrong with him.

Japan: It's nonstop. It's big. It's beautiful. And clean! This is the stuff of travel brochures (do those even exist anymore?)

"Canada: Not happy like the US is happy" has potential as a future slogan for our neighbors to the north. Trump said this during a press conference in Osaka, Japan, on Canada Day.

Same.

Donald Trump on his election night: "One of the most extraordinary and exciting evenings in the history of television and the history of anything." The history of anything!!

Uh, OK. (Trump is talking about MS-13 here.)

The President of the United States would like you to know he has "poor" friends, ladies and gentlemen.

These were two sentences that the President said back-to-back. And, no, I have no idea what he believed the connection to be -- or if he believed there to be one.

I laughed out loud when I read this quote about former special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony on Capitol Hill. Not kidding.

Crowd size has long been Trump's stand-in for popularity. If 8,000 people in North Carolina turn out to see his rally, how can he be unpopular in all of these "fake" polls? The logic flaw here, of course, is large enough to fly a 747 through.

Yes, of course, the crowd began chanting "Lock her up!" after Trump said this. On a related note, the 2016 election ended 997 days before he said this.

Well, this is good news!

I don't really have much to add here.

Information for life!

"Big beautiful hands of yours." -- The President of the United States.

This was supposedly an official White House event. Which means taxpayers were paying for the costs of it, not Trump's 2020 campaign. Which is weird because, well, the speech was totally and completely political.

The best winning. So much product.

The President of the United States on guns.

Go here to see the original:
Donald Trump's 199 wildest lines of 2019 - CNN

5. Here comes Mike...: With his campaign's TV ad spending soaring above $100 million, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is starting to see some return on his investment.

A Fox News poll released Sunday put Bloomberg at 5% nationally, putting him behind only the presumed top tier of former Vice President Joe Biden (30%), Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (20%), Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (13%) and South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg (7%). (Bloomberg is tied with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.)

Remember, too, that Bloomberg is running a national strategy as opposed to an early state one. Bloomberg is effectively skipping all four votes in February (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) in order to focus his time and money on Super Tuesday (March 3) and beyond, when the vast majority of Democratic delegates will be allocated. Given that approach, national polling may be more relevant right now to measure Bloomberg's growth and chances than early state data.

Even with Bloomberg's early gains, he still needs help to be viable come March. If a single candidate sweeps the first four states (or even wins three of the four), the race may be all but over when the calendar turns to March. The more chaos in February, then, the better for Bloomberg.

The coincidence of timing could make for one of Trump's most memorable rallies. While he has sought to shrug off the impeachment charges publicly, CNN reporting makes clear that he is privately quite agitated about the whole thing. And if there's ever a time and a place where Trump will let what he thinks on the inside come out, it's in a campaign rally -- surrounded by thousands of cheering faithful -- in the middle of the impeachment proceedings.

The juxtaposition of the rally and the likely vote also speak to another reality: Trump's unique ability to counter-program the news. While attendees of the Michigan rally will, no doubt, be aware of the impeachment drama, they will take the news (and analysis) of the whole thing from Trump himself. Ditto for hardcore Trump supporters, who either see highlights of the speech or watch it themselves online.

3. A rebellion against the DNC: On the eve of this week's sixth debate in California -- more on that below! -- there's already a fight over the debates scheduled for the new year.

For its part, the DNC seemed unmoved. "The DNC will not change the threshold for any one candidate and will not revert back to two consecutive nights with more than a dozen candidates," said a spokeswoman for the committee.

At issue is the DNC's criteria, which, for this December debate included more than 200,000 unique donors and four polls in national or early states in which a candidate gets 4% support or more. (A candidate could also qualify with two national or early state polls that show him or her at 6% or higher.)

It seems unlikely the DNC will budge -- at least based on this single letter. The committee's stated goal was to ensure the debate process was fair, yes, but also that as the votes got closer the field was winnowed down to candidates able to demonstrate clear support.

If the DNC holds firm, it is likely curtains for the likes of Booker and former San Antonio Mayor Julin Castro who didn't make this week's debate and seem very unlikely to meet the rising DNC criteria.

2. The sixth debate is coming (or is it??): On Thursday, the seven top Democratic candidates will be at Loyola Marymount University for the sixth Democratic debate. It's the smallest number of candidates to qualify for any of the six debates and should provide a better opportunity for the top candidates to engage with one another -- and draw clear contrasts on critical issues most notably health care.

Assuming the debate happens -- and there's too much riding on it for it to not -- expect Buttigieg to come under the scrutiny that everyone expected him to face in the last debate just before Thanksgiving. (Buttigieg largely got a pass in that debate because the moderators seemed entirely uninterested in allowing the candidates to actually, you know, debate one another.)

A strong showing by Biden would cement his late momentum -- although the former vice president has struggled to put together a single solid debate yet. Warren needs to re-find her spark in the race after two less-than-impressive debate over the last two months. And it's getting late for Klobuchar to make her move.

1. The biggest week of the Trump presidency is here: Assuming all goes according to plan, the Democratic-controlled House will impeach Trump on two articles -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- sometime on Wednesday. At which point the articles will be sent to the Senate for a trial that will begin shortly after Congress returns in the new year. No matter what happens in the Senate trial, Trump will be, after this week, only the third president to be impeached by the House.

While there's little doubt that Democrats will pass both articles of impeachment, the vote will still be a telling indicator of party unity -- and nerves.

The question for Democrats is how many other members join that duo in opposing either one or both articles of impeachment. The key group to watch is the 31 Democrats (including Peterson and Van Drew) who represent seats that Trump won in 2016. So far, none of those Democrats have come out against either article of impeachment. But there's still 72 hours before the vote.

For Republicans, Trump is hoping to replicate the floor vote on formalizing the impeachment inquiry, when not a single GOPer voted "yes." And so far, no Republican has publicly announced plans to break ranks.

If Trump can hold all House Republicans in line, it makes it much, much easier for the President and his allies to make the case that this is a purely partisan and political endeavor by Democrats. And it would also send a clear message to on-the-fence Republican senators about which way the wind is blowing.

No matter what happens next, this week is history.

Read more here:
The biggest week of Donald Trump's presidency - CNN

Since the day of Donald Trumps inauguration, there has always been a strain of aspirational thinking within the Resistance that maybe, just maybe, his vague and mostly fictional populist sensibilities could be harnessed for good. The man is a deranged fascist, yes, the thinking goes, but perhaps he will do something nice for all the laid-off manufacturing workers and such purely to spite the Republican establishment that made fun of him. Trump offers just enough unpredictability that forces whose most fervent desire is for things to just get back to normal can imagine that his racist rightwing populism might be nudged over into progressive populism, without him noticing. Hope springs eternal, for those willing to ignore reality indefinitely.

Some would call this maintaining a positive attitude. Others would call it, more accurately, maintaining a gullible attitude. Either way, this brand of thought has preoccupied certain Democratic constituencies enough to make their opposition to this administration perfunctory, rather than passionate. It is hard to maintain an appropriately obsessive focus on throwing the bastard out if you are always harboring the dream of striking a deal with him.

Nothing embodies this better than the newly agreed-upon USMCA the Trump administrations updated Nafta trade deal that has already become a receptacle of both Republican and Democratic political fantasies. The actual text of the deal has not yet been released, but from what we know so far, it seems to be rather meh on substance. It contains provisions that are unduly favorable to big tech, but Democrats succeeded in axing a handout to big pharma; it improves on labor conditions for Mexican workers, but fails to address the fundamental cross-border inequalities that have sucked millions of manufacturing jobs out of America since the original Nafta was passed a quarter-century ago; environmentalists have branded the deal a failure; the highest praise that the labor-friendly Economic Policy Center could muster was to say that the USMCA is the best of a set of bad choices; and for all of the crowing from the White House, the real macroeconomic impact of the deal is expected to be close to nil. It is fair to say that the deal is better than the original Nafta, which was bad, and is better than having our nihilist president simply tear up our trade agreements with little alternative, which is also bad, but it is not, you know, good, if were being honest. That fact has not prevented Nancy Pelosi from swaggering about like a conquering hero, swaddled in the wacky fantasy that there are actual living, breathing Americans who will now decide to vote Democratic because the party has proven that it can govern during impeachment. (Sadly, the last American swing voter concerned with bipartisan trade deal negotiating ability died in 2001, at the age of 99.)

The most disturbing aspect of this entire saga is not even the content of the deal. It is the political capital expended on it by those who are supposed to be protecting us from the predations of the Republicans. In particular, organized labor a group that is engaged in a bitter existential struggle for survival due to a decades-long assault by the Republican party, and that should be the spearhead of powerful resistance to Trump and his priorities has spent a frightful amount of time and energy securing this deal. Richard Trumka, the head of the 12.5 million-member AFL-CIO, has long made the USMCA his top public priority, and his support was vital to the agreements success, notwithstanding the mixed feelings of several individual unions. Ask yourself: is the renegotiation of this trade deal the most important thing for the United States labor movement, at a time when union membership has declined to only one in 10 workers, and the billionaires are hoarding all of the economic gains, and the white nationalists are running the White House? The problem is not that Trumka was involved in a trade deal; nor is it that Democrats did not get every last thing they wanted in the trade deal; the problem is that we are living in a time of incipient fascism and grotesque inequality when the millions of working people who most desperately need the protection of unions are being everywhere underpaid, disempowered and deported, and the person who represents the movement that should be kicking down doors and rushing to their rescue is, instead, focused on cutting a trade deal with Donald Trump.

We dont need clever little bureaucrats pursuing minor policy tweaks in an effort to recapture the good old days

Perspective: it is important to have it.

The Democratic establishments wrongest and most dearly held belief about the 2016 election is that all we need to do is to win back some of those mythical White Working Class Voters who defected to Trump, and all will be well again. It is this view one that ignores the deep, structural inequalities that led us here and the deep shit we are now in that drives leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Richard Trumka to prize the USMCA so much. It is a flag that they can wave to that single demographic group that they believe holds the key to regaining power. Unfortunately for them, their thesis is all wrong. We dont need clever little bureaucrats pursuing minor policy tweaks in an effort to recapture the good old days. We need fire-breathing warriors, rallying those who have been bulldozed by the plutocracy. The future of the labor movement is not Trump-voting midwestern whites, but young people and immigrants and women and minorities, all of whom are being constantly oppressed by those in power today. And the future of the Democratic party is not going to be secured by ostentatiously finding common ground with the current president. If you think this trade deal is good, imagine what we might get if we waited a year or two, and negotiated it under President Bernie Sanders.

More here:
Cutting a deal with Trump on free trade will not win a single vote for Democrats - The Guardian