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In 2009, Democrats controlled both the state senate and house in 27 states, the Republicans 14. After the 2016 elections, Republicans controlled both branches of the legislatures in 32 states to 14 for the Democrats.

The importance of these trends cannot be overstated. State legislatures not only control redistricting in most states a key to determining which party will control the House after the 2020 census but also serve as a training ground where politicians learn the ropes of winning elections and governing. In this respect, state legislatures are a key source of new talent.

Emerge America, an organization that recruits Democratic women to run for office, is stressing the need for candidates to file for state legislative seats. In the first six months of 2016, the group raised $500,219; during the first half of this year, it raised $2.03 million.

Andrea Dew Steele, the organizations president and founder, describes Emerge as the beginning of the food chain, performing basic training for women, many of them seeking office for the first time.

In 2017, Emerge expanded operations from 17 to 22 states, including such deep red states as Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana. Unlike Emilys List, a more established group that supports Democratic women, Emerge pointedly does not have a litmus test requiring its candidates to back abortion rights.

One of the biggest successes so far this year is the organization called Indivisible, founded in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election by Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, a married couple who both worked as aides to Democratic congressmen. Indivisible now claims 5,983 local chapters, with at least two in every congressional district.

Indivisible has played a leading role in turning out voters at congressional town halls to voice their opposition to Trumps plan to repeal Obamacare a tactic explicitly copied from the Tea Partys organizing drive in 2009-2010.

While support for these relatively new groups on the left is growing, the track record of some of the more established organizations is mixed.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has traditionally been the single most important group devoted to winning state senate and state house seats. In terms of financial support, it has seen a modest increase. In the first six months of 2016, the D.L.C.C. raised $4.03 million compared to $4.36 million during the first six months of 2017.

Organizing for Action, an offshoot of Obamas presidential campaigns, has experienced a steady drop in revenues: from $26 million in 2013 to $14.4 million in 2014 to $9 million in 2015 to $6 million in 2016. O.F.A. raised $3.4 million during the first half of 2017, according to Jesse Lehrich, the organizations communications director.

Money is not the only factor in politics if it were, the efforts of these progressive groups would be doomed.

Republicans and conservative organizations have had the financial advantage in the fight for state legislatures, and they will continue to have it during the 2018 election cycle.

Take the Republican State Leadership Committee. It has raised $6.53 million so far this year, $2.17 million more than the amount raised by its Democratic counterpart.

On a larger scale, the immense network of organizations created by the Koch brothers and other conservative donors far outstrips the structures that Democrats and liberals are piecing together. USA Today reported in June that in 2017-18 the Koch machine plans to spend $300- $400 million on elections and lobbying at every level.

If we look at enthusiasm, however, Democrats have the clear advantage this year. Take special legislative elections.

In an analysis published by FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich found that in the first 15 special elections to fill vacant state legislative seats in 2017, Democratic candidates outperformed past Democratic presidential candidates by an average of 14.4 percentage points. On Aug. 8, Phil Miller, a Democrat, won a special election to fill a vacant seat in the Iowa House by 10 points in a district that Trump carried by 22.

Another gauge of enthusiasm is the willingness of prospective candidates to enter contests in the first place. Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute and a professor of political science at the University at Albany, tracked the number of Democratic and Republican challengers (in other words, non-incumbents) who filed their candidacies with the Federal Election Commission and had raised $5,000 as of June 30.

Malbin compared the data to prior years and his findings are noteworthy: So far this year, there are already 209 Democratic challengers, more than in any of the previous seven election cycles and more than double the 78 Republican challengers in 2009, the year that led up to the Republican wave election of 2010.

Number of candidates running against House incumbents who raised at least $5,000 by June in each of these years.

While motivation is high on the left, there is no guarantee that it will be well directed. Many of the newly involved enthusiasts are political neophytes.

Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard, has been studying the rise of Indivisible in eight mid-western counties.

In a phone interview, Skocpol said the quality and effectiveness of Indivisible chapters ran the gamut in terms of efficacy, with only some developing structured organizations. There are groups, she said, that are equipped to mobilize members to act on specific issues and to get voters to the polls, while others are far less prepared to engage on either front.

Along similar lines, a Democratic operative with extensive experience in grass-roots organizing who asked not to be identified told me that

We are working with many of these new organizations in a variety of ways. As we have non-disclosure agreements with all of the organizations we work with, details have to come from them. The growth in activism that these groups have both spurred and harnessed outstrips anything I have seen in decades previously. That said, this activism is pushing against strong structural headwinds and entrenched power. Further, still unknown is whether the geographic distribution of this activism will be aligned with and find the political fulcrum points.

By geographic distribution, this operative means that the renewed vitality on the left is most heavily concentrated in New York, Massachusetts and California, which are already Democratic.

Resilience in the face of setbacks will be a key test of the long-range viability of activist liberal organizations across the country.

David Wasserman, an election specialist, describes the likelihood of Democratic frustration in 2018 in a detailed analysis published by FiveThirtyEight, The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats. As Wasserman writes,

Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points a pretty good midterm by historical standards they could still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats.

The combination of Republican gerrymandering and the clustering of Democratic voters in urban centers has moved the median House seat well to the right of the nation, Wasserman notes.

The result is what Wasserman calls a structural partisan bias favoring Republicans in Congressional elections:

Trump lost the national popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, but Republicans won the median House seat by 3.4 points and the median Senate seat by 3.6 points.

Which is to say that Democrats will have an uphill struggle in 2018 to wrest control of either the House or Senate. Of the 25 Senate seats held by Democrats that are up for election next year, 10 are in states that Trump carried.

In the past, Republican commitments to building strength at the local level have been sustained by trade associations and corporations with a financial stake in decisions made at the county and state level. There is every reason to believe these interests will continue to invest time and money to protect their profits.

From 2010 to 2016, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the single largest contributor to the Republican State Leadership Committee, steadily increasing its support over this period to a total of $14.9 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Such companies as Walmart, Reynolds American, Eli Lilly and AT&T are also substantial R.S.L.C. backers.

The liberal donors and activists who have mobilized this year have a less materialistic stake in the outcome of local elections. If, as Wassermans data suggests, a major victory is beyond reach in November 2018, will these players regroup and fight on? Or will they retreat at the state and local level, as they have in the past, leaving this refractory terrain to their highly motivated Republican adversaries?

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Donald Trump Is the Godfather of a Democratic Renaissance - New York Times

But a look back at Trump's past statements on Pyongyang's nuclear program and the Hermit Kingdom's young dictator, Kim Jong Un, shows the President to have been consistently aggressive on the issue, as it relates to US security, over the course of nearly two decades.

Simply put, while the heated language in Trump's remarks to reporters in New Jersey on Tuesday might have been jarring in the moment, no one should have been surprised by the tone.

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States," he said. "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. (Kim) has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury, and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before."

Like that turn of phrase, Trump's posturing on North Korea has a familiar ring.

During a November 1999 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, the future president warned that, without a diplomatic solution, the US would need to consider military measures.

"You go and you start negotiating," Trump said, "and if you don't stop them ... you will have to take rather drastic actions because if you don't take them now, you're going to be in awfully big trouble in five years from now when they have more missiles than we do.

Asked if that meant he was advocating for a unilateral strike, Trump said, "You can never rule it out."

"That's what they're afraid of," he added. "That's what they're concerned with. You'll most likely with that attitude be able to make a deal. But if you can't, you have to react."

Trump struck a similar note when discussing the issue on NBC's "Meet the Press" that fall. When host Tim Russert asked about the suggestion Trump would, if president, "launch a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear capability," Trump first said, "I would negotiate like crazy. And I'd make sure that we tried to get the best deal possible."

Failing that, he ventured, the US should consider preemptive action. (North Korea did not, at that time, have a confirmed nuclear arsenal.)

"You want to do it in five years when they have warheads all over the place, every one of them pointing to New York City, to Washington and every one of our -- is that when you want to do it?," Trump said. "Or do you want to do something now?"

After years of back-and-forth over sanctions, and a broken pledge to give up its program, North Korea in October 2006 claims to have successfully tested its first nuclear weapon. Over the next decade, Pyongyang reported a series of additional detonations, while ramping up its ability to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile -- a development that, in theory, could put the distant US and European cities in its nuclear crosshairs.

By 2013, Kim Jong Un had been in power for more than a year. His father, Kim Jong Il, died of a heart attack in December 2011. Trump has spoken with a mix of qualified admiration, opprobrium and mockery when addressing the young strongman.

"(President Obama) must be very careful with the 28 year old wack job in North Korea," Trump tweeted in April 2013, adding, in a preview of Tuesday's rhetoric, "At some point we may have to get very tough - blatant threats."

"You have, probably, North Korea has them. I mean, they don't have delivery yet, but you know, probably, I mean to me, that's a big problem," he said. "And, would I rather have North Korea have them with Japan sitting there having them also? You may very well be better off if that's the case."

Japan, however, has forsworn nuclear weapons and since a little after the end of World War II has been governed under a so-called "pacifist constitution."

Since taking office, though, Trump has focused more on China when discussing avenues for curtailing North Korea's ambitions. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has enjoyed a relatively warm relationship with Trump, including a round of gold course diplomacy during a February visit with Trump in Florida.

Co-moderator Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio host, pressed Trump, asking, "Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority?"

"I think," the candidate responded, "I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me."

Since February of this year, North Korea has launched 18 missiles over the course of 12 tests. The two fired in July, both KN-14, or liquid fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles, have upped the ante -- and tension around the world. On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution imposing new sanctions on the regime in response.

But even as Trump touted that significant diplomatic coup, a new report, with the potential to completely upend the status quo, was coming down the pike.

"(The nuclear arsenal) is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before," he added, in a return to the previous day's saber-rattling. "Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!"

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Surprised? Donald Trump has always talked like this about North Korea's nuclear threat - CNN

"Senator Mitch McConnell said I had 'excessive expectations,' but I don't think so," Trump tweeted Wednesday afternoon. "After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?"

Scavino added a link to his tweet of a video of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaking at an event in Kentucky on Tuesday -- which is what started this all up.

The simple fact is that McConnell was always skeptical that there were 50 votes for any sort of health care overhaul. It's why he tried to fast-walk the legislation before the July 4 congressional recess so he could move on to tax reform, where he's said there's more opportunity for a win.

Beyond the overreaction, what baffles me is whether Trump did this in a fit of pique or whether there was some sort of intentionality or strategy behind it.For the life of me, I can't figure that one out.

Remember that for everything that Trump wants going forward -- tax reform, funding for the border wall, maybe even another shot at health care -- he needs McConnell. Badly. And despite the health care setback, McConnell still inspires considerable loyalty among his colleagues.

Picking a fight with someone: a) you need to get things done and b) people look up to, seems to me to be the essence of playing dumb politics. Maybe Trump (and Scavino) have some sort of grand plan here I don't see. Always possible! But from where I sit, this was a needless fight to pick that could have decidedly negative consequences on the Trump's agenda in the future.

The rest is here:
Donald Trump just picked a dumb fight with Mitch McConnell - CNN

"The W.H. is functioning perfectly, focused on HealthCare, Tax Cuts/Reform & many other things," he tweeted last month. "I have very little time for watching T.V."

"In the wake of almost every event he holds, whether it be a rally, a bilateral press conference or a White House ceremony, Trump is presented with a packet of screenshots showing how the television networks covered the event, two senior administration officials told CNNMoney. This enables him to see the chyrons -- the headlines and captions on the lower third of the screen -- that were being broadcast during the event."

Um, what?

To be clear: This is not actual news stories that are being printed out and handed to Trump. These are screenshots of television news -- with particular emphasis on the so-called "lower thirds" where the text of what a person is saying usually appears.

That's some next-level stuff by Trump. (I work for a TV network and printing out screengrabs to see the chyrons is stunning even to me!) It shows how invested he is in his image, and how much he believes -- rightly, I think -- that his image is created and maintained by cable TV.

It's also a stark contrast with Trump's predecessor in office, Barack Obama, who proudly refused to watch cable news of any sort.

Trump, at 71 years old, isn't changing his ways. Which means the TV is always on in the White House.

Continued here:
Donald Trump is WAY more obsessed with cable TV than you even think - CNN

Lawyers from two prominent LGBTQ advocacy organizations have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of five transgender service members with almost 60 years of combined military service.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)filed the suit,Doe v. Trump,in response to President Donald Trumps recent tweets calling for a full ban on transgender peopleserving in the United States military. The ACLU filed a separate lawsuit on Wednesday.

Trumps directive to excludetransgenderpeople from military service has created a tidal wave of harms that have already been felt throughout our armed services, Shannon Minter, atransgenderlegal expert and NCLR Legal Director, said in a statement sent to HuffPost. Transgenderservice members have been blindsided by this shift and are scrambling to deal with what it means for their futures and their families. The Presidents mistreatment of these dedicated troops will serve only to weaken and demoralize our armed forces.

According to a press release, the five plaintiffs have served in the Air Force, the Coast Guard, and the Army.

The biggest questions to be raised from Trumps discriminatory directive stem from the thousands of openly transgender people already serving in the United States military many of them overseas. A recent study suggests that there are currently between1,320 and 6,630transgender individuals actively serving in the U.S. military.

The suit refers prominently to Defense Departments decision in 2016 to allow transgender people to serve openly.

If implemented, the suit claims Trumps ban would violate a number of constitutional protections.

The directive to reinstate a ban on open service by transgender people violates both the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the suit states.

The presidents ban, which has not gone into effect due to a lack of clear guidelines, has been almost universally criticized.

Fifty-six retired U.S. generals and admirals slammed the directive in a letter released last week, which argued the ban would cause significant disruptions, deprive the military of mission-critical talent, and compromise the integrity of transgender troops.

A new report released on Wednesday by The Palm Center found thatfully implementing President Trumps ban would cost $960 million in pursuit of saving $8.4 million per year.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday also stated its intention to file a lawsuit against the directive at some time in the near future. The ACLU did send a letter to the White House [on Tuesday] formally informing them that we intend to sue and telling them to preserve all documents related to the their planned ban on trans military members in preparation for our forthcoming lawsuit, Ryan Karerat, communications strategist for the ACLU, wrote in an email sent to HuffPost.

Read the Doe v. Trumplawsuit in its entirety below.

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Donald Trump's Transgender Military Ban Just Got Slapped With A Lawsuit - HuffPost