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Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidates Tom Perriello (front) and Ralph Northam. CREDIT: AP Photo/Steve Helber

This morning, I woke up, showered, walked my dog, then drove to the local high school to vote in Virginias primary election. Hopefully, I will get to vote for the same candidate I voted for today in Novembers general election.

But theres one thing I wont be able to vote for this election cyclea government that is actually capable of implementing policies favored by the Democratic Party. Thanks in large part to aggressive gerrymandering in the Virginia House of Delegates, I will get to choose between total Republican dominance of my home state or gridlock.

Virginia is an increasingly blue state. Hillary Clinton won the state by over five points. President Obama won it twice. The current governor, Terry McAuliffe, is a former chair of the Democratic National Committee. Both Democratic candidates in todays primaryformer Rep. Tom Perriello and Lt. Gov. Ralph Northamare strongly favored over their likely Republican opponent in the general election.

Yet the GOP holds 66 seats in the states 100 seat House of Delegates. In 2013, the same year that Democrats swept all three of Virginias statewide offices, the GOP won 67 seats in the state house.

What this means is that, if a Republican wins this Novembers gubernatorial race, that Republican is highly likely to have a GOP state house and senate that will enact the full Republican agenda. Voter suppression, draconian budgets, pro-discrimination laws dressed up as religious liberty and similar legislation are all likely to follow.

If you want to know what this looks like, take a look at North Carolina. Or Louisiana. Or Kansas. Or Texas.

Meanwhile, if Perriello or Northam win, it will be nearly impossible for Virginias voters to elect a Democratic House of Delegateseven if a majority of those voters cast a ballot for a Democratic candidate. That means that major Democratic priorities like expanding Medicaid, protecting voting rights, reducing gun violence, and environmental protection will almost certainly receive no support from the state legislature.

Republicans can go to the polls dreaming of the kind of state governance that they most desire. Democrats can only hope to ward off an outcome that they hate. That not only gives Republicans a serious advantage in the policy sphere, it also is likely to demoralize Democrats on Election Daypotentially swinging the result.

Of course, that doesnt mean that voting in the Virginia gubernatorial election is futile. At the federal level, the difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration is immense, even if Obama spent most of his time in office with a Republican House of Representatives. The difference between a fully-empowered Republican governor and a weakened Democrat would be equally significant.

The next governor of Virginia, moreover, will sit during the next redistricting cycleso they will have the power to veto a bill that tries to entrench gerrymandering in the House of Delegates even further.

But, barring an utter landslide, theres one thing that isnt on the ballot this Novembera fair choice between Democrats and Republicans.

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Virginia's aggressive gerrymandering means voters can have Republican rule or nothing - ThinkProgress

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Montana Republican Greg Gianforte Is Sentenced in Assault on Reporter New York Times Greg Gianforte, a Montana Republican, was sentenced on Monday to 40 hours of community service and 20 hours of anger management classes for assaulting a reporter the night before he won a seat in the House of Representatives last month. Appearing in ... and more »

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Montana Republican Greg Gianforte Is Sentenced in Assault on Reporter - New York Times

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

From left, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senior Adviser to President Donald Trump Jared Kushner as they wait for the President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to begin their meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post. Subscribe here.

Dear Messrs. Ryan, McConnell, Pence, and Priebus,

Its now pretty clear that President Trump, one way or another, will be removed from office. Events and James Comeys testimony have established an open-and-shut case of obstruction of justice.

Trump tried to get Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn; then when Comey refused, Trump fired him. It doesnt get any clearer than that. Not even in Watergate.

In addition, details of the Trump campaigns collusion with the Russians successful efforts to undermine the 2016 election have yet to come out from the special prosecutors investigation. When they do, they wont be pretty; nor will the details of Trumps repeated co-mingling of his business interests with his official business as president.

There is also the fact that Trump is plainly insane. We can argue about the diagnosisserious people have proposed everything from dementia to neurosyphilisbut this is clearly not a man in his right mind. His competence in speaking is steadily deteriorating, as shown by expert comparisons of his clear sentences two decades ago with his near-gibberish in recent weeks and months.

Trump is so damaged that he cant even seriously act in his own self-interest because he cant remember his lies from day to day. His impulsivity regularly undermines yesterdays spin and last weeks alibi.

So Id like to appeal to you both as patriots and as partisans.

The first appeal is simple. This man should not be president of the United States. The 25th Amendment, on grounds of serious impairment, is the most straightforward way to get him out. It is basically a coup by the cabinet, ratified by a two-thirds majority of Congress.

This is something that happens in other democracies all the time, and is about to happen in Britain because of Prime Minister Teresa Mays political lapses. But Trumps lapses are far more serious.

As the mess in Qatar indicates, Trumps plain confusion and lack of serious attention to complex foreign policy issues could cause disastrous national security consequences. He could get us all blown up. I am not privy to your private conversations, of course, but I assume Trumps madness does come up.

Weighing against that is Trumps usefulness to you as Republican conservatives. With him in the White House, you can pass legislation that Trump will sign, get him to issue executive orders furthering your agenda, get conservatives appointed to courtsand as my colleague Paul Starr has observed, the more vulnerable Trump is, the more captive he is to your protection.

On the other hand, Trump is so thoroughly out of his mind that he may not grasp that. I assume that your partisanship, for now at least, outweighs your patriotism. That is a shamehistory will judge you harshly, assuming that we are not all blown to bits.

So let me appeal next to your self-interest.

Trump will go sooner or latereither his obstruction of justice, corruption, and plain treason will become so flagrant that some of your Republican colleagues will begin breaking ranks. Or if they dont, you will be handing the Democrats a massive victory in 2018 and 2020, as you share responsibility and blame for the national catastrophe of the Trump presidency.

You would be much better offand so would the countryif you got Trump out in the next few months, and then sought to regroup under President Pence.

I realize, of course, that Im not a disinterested observer. As the co-editor of a leading progressive journal, I hope that you pay the full consequences of sticking with Trump. But as a political analyst, I think that with Pence youd at least have a fighting chance to hold on to power; and with Trump, youd have no chance.

I may be a sometime partisan, but Im enough of a patriot that I hope that you decide to oust Trump, if not on grounds of patriotism then on grounds of partisanship. And as fellow human beings, we should all be averse to getting blown up.

Yours truly,

Robert Kuttner

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An Open Letter to the Republican Leadership - The American Prospect - The American Prospect

Tue., June 13, 2017, 12:25 p.m.

Candidates in Georgias 6th Congressional District race Republican Karen Handel, left, and Democrat Jon Ossoff prepare to debate Tuesday, June 6, 2017, in Atlanta. The two meet in a June 20 special election. (Branden Camp / Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

WASHINGTON House GOP leaders warned their rank-and-file members Tuesday of the potential for heavy midterm losses next year that could cost Republicans their majority, and they urged renewed attention and focus to a positive agenda and message.

The warning was aimed at encouraging lawmakers to stay focused and not be chasing all the different other shiny objects, according to Republican Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina.

It comes a week ahead of a special election in Georgia, where Democrats are spending heavily to contest what should be a safe Republican seat. The outcome will be seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump and whether Democrats can capitalize on the excitement of their base to get wins in GOP-leaning districts next year.

House leaders reminded lawmakers that historically the presidents party loses 30-plus House seats in first-term midterms, according to members present. Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to take the House. GOP leaders issued their warning in a closed-door meeting held away from the Capitol so they could discuss politics and fundraising, which are not supposed to be mixed with official business under ethics rules.

The 18 cycle is going to be our first real test out of the box after a change in administration so we have to do our jobs, we need to be fundamentally sound, we need to have our game face on every day and we need to be developing the right resources, said Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas, a leadership ally. The message from leadership, and I think its a very appropriate message, is we arent going to take anything for granted.

There is concern among Republicans over the outcome next week in the Georgia district previously held by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. The district has long been in GOP hands, but Democrats are pouring in resources to try to get a win for their neophyte candidate, Jon Ossoff, over Republican Karen Handel. Its become the most expensive House race in history.

In Tuesdays meeting lawmakers were shown polling data indicating the race was tied, they said. They claimed optimism even as they argued a GOP loss in Georgia shouldnt be over-interpreted. Republicans also suffered a near-loss recently in a special election in heavily Republican Montana, although their candidate ended up winning even after a last-minute assault charge.

If we dont win the seat I dont know that it qualifies as a sign of whats to come, it could be an outlier, Womack said of the Georgia race.

The House GOP focus on the looming midterm struggle comes with scrutiny of the Trump administration over Russia connections at a fever pitch. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was testifying Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, and Republicans have been struggling to stay focused on their agenda and draw attention to it.

Thus far, they have not realized their marquee goals of passing major health care or tax legislation, but argue they arent getting the attention and credit they should for smaller yet still significant bills like one on reforming the Veterans Affairs administration that the House is passing this week.

Lets put this all in perspective. We are focused on solving peoples problems, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said Tuesday when asked about scuttlebutt that the president could be considering firing the special prosecutor on the Russia investigation.

Im not saying this isnt important. These investigations are important. They need to be independent. They need to be thorough. They need to go where the facts go, Ryan said. But we also have a duty to serve the people that elected us to fix the problems that theyre confronting in their daily lives, and thats what were doing.

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House Republicans brace for potential 2018 midterm losses - The Spokesman-Review

This post originally appeared on Media Matters.

Amid a heated atmosphere of anti-media Republican rhetoric that has at times turned into violence against journalists, McClatchy is reporting that Republican plans for the 2018 elections will feature a deliberate strategy to help GOP candidates win elections fueled by public hatred of reporters.

An open campaign against an institutional pillar of a democratic state would be a frightening thing to watch. Theres also every reason to believe it could work.

After all, President Donald Trump was elected last November after a campaign that regularly featured scathing personal insults against individual journalists and the institution writ large. His speeches were built in part on jeering at the press to the delight of his audience, including disgustingly ridiculing the physical disability of a reporter who had debunked one of his falsehoods. He threatened to change the laws to make it easier to sue reporters and to use the power of the state to retaliate against news outlets whose coverage he disliked. His campaign manager manhandled a reporter during a campaign event.

Trumps attacks on the press regularly resulted in oceans of unfavorable coverage (but little collective action of the sort that might have brought a change in the candidates behavior). Commentators warned that he was setting the stage for authoritarianism. His mockery of the reporters disability was turned into negative campaign advertisements that were in heavy rotation in swing states.

He won.

In an election decided by so few votes, it is extremely difficult to determine the cause of victory. I wouldnt go so far as to say he won because of his attacks on the press. But they were self-evidently not disqualifying.

Targeting the press might not move swing voters in the 2018 midterms indeed, polls show that voters broadly disapprove of such attacks. But that wouldnt be the purpose of such an effort. As McClatchy explains, this is a base mobilization strategy aimed at getting Trump die-hards to the polls on Election Day.

Those voters are primed for such an effort. Conservatives have inculcated their voters for decades with claims that journalists are biased liberals who cannot be trusted. When Trump took that argument to its natural conclusion, lashing out at reporters at his rallies as a candidate and then as president, those voters cheered him on. Since his election, the president has sought to delegitimize the press and other sources of critical information about his administration, condemning their reports as deliberate efforts to push fake news.

Voters take their cues from their partys leaders, and the available polling data show that the GOP base has followed the president as he has increasingly wallowed in these anti-media conspiracy theories. Polls show that four out of five Republicans agree with Trumps statement that certain news organizations are the enemy of the American people, like the way he talks about the press, and believe the mainstream press frequently publishes fake news. Trust in the press has fallen throughout the public at large in recent years, but the numbers among the Republicans the reported strategy seeks to target are truly catastrophic.

The hermetically sealed media bubble that conservatives have built in recent decades serves both as a cause of this plummeting support for journalists and a key weapon for Republican strategists seeking to utilize this anti-press strategy. In order to build their audiences, outlets like Fox News and Breitbart.com regularly tell their viewers and readers that the mainstream press cannot be trusted. This has led to the creation of a parallel right-wing media apparatus that ensures conservatives can detach from reality in favor of a steady news diet of alternative facts. Those outlets are eager to assist the White House by delegitimizing any negative information reported about the president as more evidence of a biased press, and they will surely assist Republicans in their efforts to win votes by slamming the media.

It is dangerous to weaponize criticism ofinstitutions at the heart of the democratic process for partisan gain. Such an effort echoes ones weve seen before in countries that used to be free. The consequences of this strategy could be dire for our political system.

Republican politicians should refuse to engage in these tactics. Republican leaders should disavow this strategy immediately. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)* and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have an outsized influence on the political strategies their candidates use by virtue of the huge war chests they help assemble. If they want to stop it, they can.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence so far that they will. To this point, GOP leaders have responded to the presidents attacks on the press with polite statements of disagreement and disdain for the idea that they should have to respond to his statements. Since the campaign, they have put their desire for political victories over any worries about the disastrous downsides of Trumps presidency. Meanwhile, rank-and-file members have started parroting Trumps framing of negatives stories as fake news.

With Trumps agenda stalled and few legislative accomplishments to point to, conservatives have seized on a breathtakingly cynical strategy to maintain power. The most frightening part is that it might work.

*CORRECTION: This post originally identified Ryan as representing Ohio he is the representative for Wisconsins 1st District.

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Republican strategists say they will run against the media in 2018. Here's why that could work. - Salon