David Frum/Atlantic:
Trump’s Plan to End Europe
Why does the president want to undo the post–World War II order?
Trump’s policies are so poorly considered and so weakly held—his own interests so utterly subsumed in his business and his vulnerable ego—that literally almost any outcome is imaginable. We could well see Trump signing into law a Democratic Congress’s “Medicare for all.” Yet it’s also true that certain harms, once done, cannot so readily be undone. As new advisers replace the former Breitbart crew, President Trump might dial back the expression of hostility to the EU. European leaders can never again be certain, however, what might happen if those new advisers are in turn replaced. America has been immeasurably strengthened by its allies’ trust. Even as Trump’s aggressive words fade into reassuring conventionality, those allies will not soon forget their accumulated and well-grounded reasons for mistrust.
Bill Scher/Politico:
The Pathetic Pelosi Putsch
Seth Moulton and friends said they would take down the first female speaker of the House. Here’s what went wrong.
If Moulton didn’t want his effort to look like a mansplaining young punk taking down a vastly more experienced woman, then he shouldn’t have placed himself in the spotlight. He should have found a woman prepared to be the public face of the effort, ideally someone prepared to run for the post, and then gotten out of the way…
Perhaps Moulton always knew what an uphill battle he was fighting, but thought he would at least burnish his brand as a young military veteran ready to bust up the Washington establishment. Instead of being introduced to the public as the kind of “service-driven” candidate that performed well in the midterms, he now looks more like a caricature of the “mediocre white male,” brimming with unwarranted confidence and trying to steamroll over more qualified women.
Though if that’s really the case, he probably runs for president anyway.
The caucus vote is today. Good luck, Seth. Hugs and kisses from your fellow insurrectionists whom you are throwing under the bus. They will love you in two years when they have to run again.
Edward-Isaac Dovere/Atlantic:
No Labels Wanted to Go After Pelosi
The putatively nonpartisan organization considered launching a primary challenge against the California representative now running for speaker—and attacking her during the midterms as a “bogeyman.
Before saying that its opposition to Nancy Pelosi’s House speaker campaign had nothing to do with her record, the nonpartisan group No Labels was exploring a primary challenge to her back home in San Francisco.
And she wasn’t the only Democrat the centrist nonprofit wanted to go after.
No Labels bills itself as “a movement for the tens of millions of Americans who are fed up with the dysfunction and will no longer put up with a government that does not represent the interests of most Americans.” Among the group’s past co-chairs are the former Republican presidential candidate and current ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman and the former Democratic and independent Senator Joe Lieberman, who oversaw the presentation of No Labels’ “problem solver’s award” to Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries.
Did you know Nancy Jacobson, their director, was Mark Penn’s wife? That Joe Lieberman was the No Labels national leader and co-chair, whatever that is? That it’s a front group for electing conservative Republicans? You do now. So do Darren Soto and Nancy Pelosi. And the exposure of their racket as they go after Pelosi? Maybe it’s coincidence, but read the piece. You’ll never support the Problem Solvers again.
Republicans threatened to boycott the vote unless Trump is declared President. "They gave in to our demands" said Minority Leader McCarthy, declaring victory in an impassioned press conference that no one attended.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
The price Republicans pay for embracing know-nothingism
For years, Republicans have refused to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change. With the Trump administration’s own report confirming both the fact and urgency of climate change, some Republicans are begrudgingly moving to concede reality — in the most equivocal fashion possible. (Other Republicans such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida wrongly insist there is doubt that climate change is man-made, despite the danger that increasingly extreme climate conditions pose to their constituents.)
Released on Friday (in the Trump administration’s ham-handed effort to tamp down attention), the latest government report, the Fourth National Climate Assessment, was unflinching in its assessment of the dangers all of us face because of climate change...
Sure will be a shock when Mueller indictments come. I wonder if they’ve been told of election results?
Max Boot/WaPo:
I was wrong on climate change. Why can’t other conservatives admit it, too
Compared with the crushing costs of climate change, the action needed to curb greenhouse-gas emissions is modest and manageable — if we act now. Jerry Taylor, president of the libertarian Niskanen Center, estimates that a carbon tax would increase average electricity rates from 17 cents to 18 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average household, he writes, would see spending on energy rise “only about $35 per month.” That’s not nothing — but it’s better than allowing climate change to continue unabated.
I’ve owned up to the danger. Why haven’t other conservatives? They are captives, first and foremost, of the fossil fuel industry, which outspent green groups 10 to 1 in lobbying on climate change from 2000 to 2016. But they are also captives of their own rigid ideology. It is a tragedy for the entire planet that the United States’ governing party is impervious to science and reason.
Tim Elfrink and Fred Barbash/WaPo:
‘These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas.’
The chaos erupted Sunday around the bustling San Ysidro border crossing, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said was closed “to ensure public safety in response to large numbers of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.”
But Democratic leaders, human rights advocates and others focused on the images of the two children in particular. Many pointed to the children left gagging from the gas attack as evidence that Trump’s push against a caravan of asylum seekers from Central America had gone too far.
“Shooting tear gas at children is not who we are as Americans,” tweeted Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “Seeking asylum is not a crime. We must be better than this.”
You don’t have to love Geraldo. Point is, Fox viewers saw it.
Harry Enten/CNN:
Trump's unconventional presidency is hurting his 2020 chances
Could Trump turn it around in time for 2020? Of course. Two years is an eternity in politics. For Trump to be a favorite for reelection, he probably needs one of three things to happen.
Option one is for Trump to not do anything and hope his overall approval rating comes into closer alignment with his economic approval rating on its own. Now the past is often not prologue when it comes to electoral politics (see the fact that Trump became president). That said, Trump's overall approval rating has
continually run behind his economic approval rating. This is not some new phenomenon.
Option two is that the economy gets even better, so that even if his overall approval rating lags his economic approval rating, both can rise to the point where his overall approval rating makes him a favorite for reelection. This is possible, but remember the economy is already really strong. The unemployment rate is
3.7%. It has dipped only 0.4 points over the last year.
Option three is that Trump acts more like a conventional president to allow voters' economic views to more closely match their overall views of Trump. Trump's tweets, attacks on the media and improvisational style may be fodder for his base, but they don't seem to be working on the electorate at-large. A
Monmouth University poll earlier this year found that the vast majority of Americans said Trump ran a less conventional administration than normal, and by a 21-point margin, they said that was a bad thing.
Of these options, only the third one is really in Trump's immediate control. The question is how does option three actually happen? Trump's been president for nearly two years now, and at no point has he really shown any sign that he's willing to get out of his own way.
Likeliest is Option 1: Do nothing different, hope for the best, fail like he failed at keeping the House. And pretend Mueller isn’t going to hurt him.
WSJ:
The U.S. Housing Boom Is Coming to an End, Starting in Dallas
Home prices zoomed higher in recent years, and mortgage rates are climbing. Buyers are queasy.
U.S. existing home sales have declined on an annual basis for eight straight months, the longest slump in more than four years, according to the National Association of Realtors report Wednesday. The slowdown has been driven by places that had earlier seen some of the strongest price growth during this recovery, including Seattle, Denver, New York City, Boston and the Bay Area.
Dallas, which had the second-strongest annual increase in employment of any metropolitan area in the country in September, helps explain why. Even though the economy in the sprawling metro area has boomed, home prices have grown much faster than wages, and buyers have been straining to afford homes.
Those price challenges have been masked in part by access to cheap credit, but that era is coming to an end. Since the beginning of the year, mortgage rates have risen about a percentage point, to the highest level since 2011.
“We have this huge affordability crisis,” said Ted Wilson, principal at Residential Strategies, a Dallas consulting firm. “With mortgage rates going higher, we’re hitting a ceiling.”
USA Today:
Khashoggi murder lays bare Trump's tragic disregard for American values and interests
The heinous murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi presented Donald Trump with his first sustained foreign policy crisis, and he has failed miserably.
Rarely does one crisis faithfully reflect all the flaws or strengths of an administration’s foreign policy. And yet what is so stunning and disturbing about President Donald Trump’s response to the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is that it does precisely that.
From the outset of the Trump presidency, the pattern has been clear: Trump, contradicting both U.S. interests and values, feels more comfortable with strongmen and authoritarians than with America’s traditional democratic allies. It’s no surprise he’s courted Saudi King Salman and coddled the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
All administrations deal with strongmen — and none have elevated human rights to the key organizing principle in U.S. foreign policy. But this administration has nearly emptied America’s foreign policy of moral or ethical values and provided a green light to every authoritarian to repress or kill journalists without consequence, certainly from Washington. And Trump described Saudi Arabia as a “spectacular ally,” even though the CIA has concluded MBS ordered Khashoggi’s murder.
Well, Brexit and Russia, but yeah. Leave it to Jared. What could go wrong?
And to be complete, MS election: