monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

oralloy wrote:

Leftists never tell the truth.

Lol! I can't believe you even went there...

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped 5 points, equaling his presidency’s low-water mark, since last week’s release of the special counsel report into the 2016 election, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Despite his sinking poll numbers, however, there is little support for removing Trump through the impeachment process, the poll shows.

Only 39 percent of voters surveyed in the new poll, which was conducted Friday through Sunday, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. That is down from 44 percent last week and ties Trump’s lowest-ever approval rating in POLITICO/Morning Consult polling — a 39 percent rating in mid-August 2017, in the wake of violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters, 57 percent, disapprove of the job Trump is doing.

But while views of Trump have tumbled since the publication of Robert Muller’s redacted report, so has support for impeaching him. Only 34 percent of voters believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings to remove the president from office, down from 39 percent in January. Nearly half, 48 percent, say Congress should not begin impeachment proceedings.

The split decision in public opinion — a decline in views of Trump’s job performance but fewer voters wanting Congress to pursue impeachment — mirrors the report itself, which clears Trump and his campaign of criminally conspiring with the Russian government to boost his election but which documents numerous, examples of Trump’s efforts to stymie the investigation.

“President Trump’s approval rating has dipped to its lowest point of his term in the immediate aftermath of the redacted Mueller report release,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president. “This week, 57 percent of voters disapprove, and 39 percent approve of the president’s performance — a net approval rating of –18 percentage points, compared with 55 percent who disapproved and 42 percent who approved — a net approval rating of –13 percentage points — one month ago in the aftermath of Attorney General [William] Barr’s summary of the Mueller report to Congress.”

While the report is damaging to Trump in the short term — other post-report polls also show decreases in Trump’s approval rating — it could also paint Democrats into a corner on impeachment. Mueller seemingly kicks the obstruction of justice case on Trump to Congress, and the Democratic-led House is squeezed between a majority of Democratic voters who want impeachment, 59 percent, and slightly more than a third of the electorate that agrees.

For now, most Democrats are treading lightly. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that her conference’s positions “range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment.” And most of the party’s presidential hopefuls have steered clear of impeachment, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) being the highest-profile candidate to take the impeachment plunge thus far.

While Democrats in Congress are split on impeachment, most party leaders, including Pelosi, are calling for the House to pull on some of the investigative threads in the Mueller report. Voters are split on whether Congress should continue to investigate whether Trump or his campaign associates and staffers obstructed the investigation: Forty-three percent say Congress should continue to investigate, while 41 percent say it should not.

Nearly three in four Democrats, 73 percent, want Congress to keep investigating, more than the 59 percent who want Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. Most notably, independents are split, 39 percent to 37 percent, on whether Congress should keep investigating — but just 31 percent of independents support beginning impeachment proceedings, compared with 44 percent who oppose impeachment.

As for the report itself, roughly a third of voters, 32 percent, say they have seen, read or heard “a lot about it,” while another third, 34 percent, have seen, read or heard “some” about it. The remaining 34 percent haven’t seen much about it or anything at all.

Among those voters who have seen, read or heard at least something about the release of the Mueller report, only 28 percent say they actually read any of the redacted report. Most of them, 73 percent, say they followed news coverage about it.

A plurality of voters, 46 percent, think the investigation into Russia’s influence on the 2016 presidential election was handled fairly, while 29 percent think it was handled unfairly. There is rare partisan agreement on this question: Forty-eight percent of Democratic voters, 46 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of independents say they think the investigation was handled fairly.

Despite positive grades for the Justice Department, Barr earns lower marks for his handling of the release of information from the Mueller-led investigation. Only three in 10 voters, 30 percent, approve of the way Barr handled the case — less than the 37 percent who disapprove.

Voters were also unsure whether Barr accurately described the contents of Mueller’s report before its release, with 32 percent saying Barr described it very or somewhat accurately, 32 percent saying he didn’t describe it accurately and 35 percent undecided.

Despite Mueller’s report, which “did not establish that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” voters are still split on the question. More than 4 in 10, 41 percent, say they think Trump’s campaign worked with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The same percentage, 41 percent, say they don’t think Trump’s campaign worked with Russia. The remaining 18 percent have no opinion.

The results on this question are little changed over the past six weeks. In mid-March, before Barr’s letter to Congress after he received the report, 43 percent thought Trump worked with Russia, while 37 percent did not. Three weeks ago, between Barr’s letter and the release of the report, the percentage of voters who thought Trump’s campaign worked with Russia had ticked down to 40 percent, while 43 percent did not think his campaign worked with Russia.

While voters are divided on whether Trump’s campaign worked with Russia, only 28 percent say they think Mueller found evidence that Trump or his campaign conspired with Russia — though just a 43 percent plurality say Mueller found no evidence of coordination. Three in 10 voters are unsure.

There is greater agreement on whether Trump tried to impede or obstruct the investigation. A plurality, 47 percent, say he did, while just 34 percent say he didn’t. Nearly 2 in 10 voters, 18 percent, have no opinion.

But many voters appear confused about what Mueller found in his report. Two in 10, 20 percent, say Mueller found that Trump obstructed the investigation, while 16 percent say Mueller found that he didn’t. A plurality, 37 percent, say correctly that Mueller did not make a determination on whether Trump obstructed the investigation, but 27 percent are unsure.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,992 voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Yeah, I’ve considered the eventuality of Trump remaining in office, and it destroying the Republican Party. I think the chances are just as good that it could go a long way toward destroying our country, though.

Buckingham Palace is expected to announce on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump will make a state visit to the UK in early June.

The president was promised the visit by Prime Minister Theresa May after he was elected in 2016 - but no date was set.

Downing Street did not comment on the matter when contacted by the BBC.

President Trump and the first lady, Melania, visited the UK in July 2018 for a two-day working visit.

During the 2018 trip, the president met Mrs May at Chequers and the Queen at Windsor Castle before heading to Scotland, where he owns the Turnberry golf course.

The president's last trip to the UK was marked by demonstrations around the UK.

In London, thousands of protestors took to the streets to voice their concerns about the visit.

And in Scotland, people showed their displeasure both in Edinburgh and at Turnberry.

The National Police Chiefs' Council estimated that the police operation for the president's 2018 visit cost nearly £18m.

It said 10,000 officers from across the country were needed to cover the occasion.

Former Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain withdrew his name for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, US President Donald Trump has tweeted.

The president said he would respect the former pizza chain executive's wishes and not pursue Mr Cain's nomination to join America's central bank.

"My friend Herman Cain, a truly wonderful man, has asked me not to nominate him", Mr Trump wrote.

Mr Trump first announced he intended to nominate Mr Cain earlier this month.

Though the president did not formally nominate Mr Cain to the seven-member board, the announcement prompted backlash among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress.

The Great Republican Abdication
A party that no longer believes in American values.
Paul Krugman

So all the “fake news” was true. A hostile foreign power intervened in the presidential election, hoping to install Donald Trump in the White House. The Trump campaign was aware of this intervention and welcomed it. And once in power, Trump tried to block any inquiry into what happened.

Never mind attempts to spin this story as somehow not meeting some definitions of collusion or obstruction of justice. The fact is that the occupant of the White House betrayed his country. And the question everyone is asking is, what will Democrats do about it?

But notice that the question is only about Democrats. Everyone (correctly) takes it as a given that Republicans will do nothing. Why?

Because the modern G.O.P. is perfectly willing to sell out America if that’s what it takes to get tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans may not think of it in those terms, but that’s what their behavior amounts to.

The truth is that the G.O.P. faced its decisive test in 2016, when almost everyone in the Republican establishment lined up behind a man fully known to be a would-be authoritarian who was unfit morally, temperamentally and intellectually for high office.

In their chilling book “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt call this “the great Republican abdication.” The party’s willingness to back behavior it would have called treasonous if a Democrat did it is just more of the same.

Levitsky and Ziblatt say that when mainstream politicians abdicate responsibility in the face of a leader who threatens democracy, it’s usually for one of two reasons. Either they have the misguided belief that he can be controlled, or they’re willing to go along because his agenda overlaps with theirs — that is, they believe that he’ll give them what they want.

At this point it’s hard to imagine that anyone still believes that Trump can be controlled. But he is delivering on the Republican establishment’s agenda — certainly far more than any Democrat would.

The key point is that Republicans are committed to a policy agenda that is deeply unpopular. By large margins, the American public believes that corporations and the wealthy don’t pay their fair share in taxes. By even larger margins, the public opposes cuts to safety-net programs like Medicaid. Yet as far as I can tell, every G.O.P. budget proposal over the past decade has combined big tax cuts for the rich with savage cuts in Medicaid.

If the Republican agenda is so unpopular, how does the party win elections? Partly by lying about its policies. But mainly the G.O.P.’s political achievements depend on identity politics — white identity politics. Exploiting racial resentment to capture white working-class voters, while pursuing policies that benefit only the wealthy, has been the core of the party’s political strategy for decades. That’s why, in an increasingly diverse country, Republican support has stayed overwhelmingly white.

In a fundamental sense, Trumpism is the culmination of that strategy. Commentators keep calling Trump a “populist,” but the only way in which he actually caters to working-class white voters is by appealing to their racial animus. He may be successful in doing so partly because it’s the only thing about his political persona that’s sincere: All indications are that he really is a racist.

His substantive policies, however, have followed the standard right-wing agenda: In 2017 he passed a huge tax cut, largely for corporations, that disproportionately benefited the wealthy, and almost succeeded in repealing Obamacare, in the process gutting Medicaid.

And these policies have endeared him to the G.O.P.’s money men. “Deep-pocketed Republicans who snubbed Donald Trump in 2016 are going all in for him in 2020,” reports Politico.

They’re doing so even though they know that Trump was installed in office in part thanks to Russian aid, that his financial entanglements with foreign governments pose huge conflicts of interest and that he consistently shows a preference for dictatorships over our democratic allies.

As I said, the modern G.O.P. is perfectly willing to sell out America if that’s what it takes to get tax cuts for the wealthy.

Once you accept this reality, two conclusions follow.

First, anyone expecting bipartisanship in dealing with the aftermath of the Mueller report — in particular, anyone suggesting that Democrats should wait for G.O.P. support before proceeding with investigations that might lead to impeachment — is being deluded. Trump is giving the Republican establishment what it wants, and it will stick with him no matter what.

Second, it’s later than you think for American democracy. Before 2016 you could have wondered whether Republicans would, in extremis, be willing to take a stand in defense of freedom and rule of law. At this point, however, they’ve already taken that test, and failed with flying colors.

The simple fact is that one of our two major parties — the one that likes to wrap itself in the flag — no longer believes in American values. And it’s very much up in the air whether America as we know it will survive.

Senator Mitt Romney said Friday he was "sickened" by President Donald Trump’s dishonesty as described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and “appalled” that people working for Trump’s campaign welcomed help from Russia.

“I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President,” Romney said in a statement. “I am also appalled that, among other things, fellow citizens working in a campaign for president welcomed help from Russia – including information that had been illegally obtained; that none of them acted to inform American law enforcement; and that the campaign chairman was actively promoting Russian interests in Ukraine."

Romney of Utah called reading Mueller’s report "a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders.” It was the most critical statement yet from a Republican senator on what Trump on Friday called “the Crazy Mueller Report.”

But the former Republican presidential nominee didn’t sound eager to delve further.

It is “good news that there was insufficient evidence to charge the President of the United States with having conspired with a foreign adversary or with having obstructed justice," Romney said. "The business of government can move on."

Mueller found evidence of multiple instances of possible obstruction of justice but declined to make a "traditional" prosecutorial decision, leaving it to Congress. Attorney General William Barr stepped in, declaring that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein found insufficient evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

Romney drew ridicule from President Barack Obama during their 2012 presidential contest for naming Russia as the U.S.’s greatest geopolitical foe.

But the former Republican presidential nominee didn’t sound eager to delve further.

Twitter has reported better-than-expected financial results, sending its shares surging, as Donald Trump accused the social media platform of “playing political games”.