Dan Balz/WaPo:
President Trump and the warping of democratic governance
Not for the first time, President Trump has revealed the fragility of this country’s democratic system. Three years into his presidency, the evidence of a weakened system is all around. It has happened in plain sight.
The latest involves the president and Ukraine. Based on what has so far been reported, the president asked, encouraged or demanded that the leader of a foreign government undertake an investigation designed to produce information that could damage a potential 2020 campaign rival.
Whether this also involved a quid pro quo is in question. The full story is not yet known. The biggest reason the details are not known is because Trump’s White House and the Justice Department, which is supposed to operate independently, have so far prevented Congress from obtaining the information that could help reveal what is missing.
Balz is not exactly an alarmist. But he’s right.
What should you do? Read this thread and call your representative.
Dave Leonhardt/NY Times:
Donald Trump vs. the United States of America
The full picture reveals a man who presents a clear and present danger to the country
…
He violated federal law by directing his lawyer to pay $280,000 in hush money to cover up two apparent extramarital affairs.
He made his fortune partly through wide-scale financial fraud.
He has refused to release his tax returns.
He falsely accused his predecessor of wiretapping him.
He claimed that federal law-enforcement agents and prosecutors regularly fabricated evidence, thereby damaging the credibility of criminal investigations across the country.
He has ordered children to be physically separated from their parents.
He has suggested that America is no different from or better than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
He has called America a “hellhole.”
He is the president of the United States, and he is a threat to virtually everything that the United States should stand for.
Let’s be clear:
WaPo:
Trump’s Ukraine call reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility
The push by Trump and his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to influence the newly elected Ukrainian leader reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility — apparently willing and even eager to wield the vast powers of the United States to taint a political foe and confident that no one could hold him back.
“We haven’t seen anything like this in my lifetime,” said William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution who graduated from college just before Watergate. “He appears to be daring the rest of the political system to stop him — and if it doesn’t, he’ll go further.”
The effort — which came as the Trump administration was withholding financial and military support from Ukraine to help the small democracy protect itself against Russian aggression — illustrates Trump’s expansive view of executive power and what appears to be a cavalier attitude about legal limits on his conduct.
Tom Nichols/Atlantic:
If This Isn’t Impeachable, Nothing Is
The president reportedly sought the help of a foreign government against Joe Biden.
Until now, there was room for reasonable disagreement over impeachment as both a matter of politics and a matter of tactics. The Mueller report revealed despicably unpatriotic behavior by Trump and his minions, but it did not trigger a political judgment with a majority of Americans that it warranted impeachment. The Democrats, for their part, remained unwilling to risk their new majority in Congress on a move destined to fail in a Republican-controlled Senate.
Now, however, we face an entirely new situation. In a call to the new president of Ukraine, Trump reportedly attempted to pressure the leader of a sovereign state into conducting an investigation—a witch hunt, one might call it—of a U.S. citizen, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden.
As the Ukrainian Interior Ministry official Anton Gerashchenko told the Daily Beast when asked about the president’s apparent requests, “Clearly, Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison.”
Asha Rangappa/WaPo:
The U.S. has no rules for when the president is a national security threat
The whistleblower controversy reveals the limits of our system’s defenses.
Very few people seem to know what’s going on with the counterintelligence investigation: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee chairman, has said that his panel doesn’t know the status of the probe, or even if it’s still going on, even though the law requires the administration to keep the lawmakers up to date.
But counterintelligence investigations are stymied if they involve the president.
And this:
And the other big news from the weekend:
Des Moines Register:
Elizabeth Warren leads Register’s Iowa Poll for the first time, besting Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders
The Register’s first 2020 caucus poll, in December 2018, pegged Warren's support at 8%. In March, about two months after she first visited the state and formally announced she would run, that rose to 9%. In June, as Iowa Democrats began to marvel at her organizational strength, she rose to 15% — though that poll’s methodology differed somewhat from the others.
Today, the universe of people who say they are considering Warren in some way — 71% of likely Democratic caucus goers — is larger than it is for any other candidate.
That includes 22% who say she is their first choice for president, 20% who say she is their second choice and another 29% who say they are actively considering her.
Trailing her are: Biden (60%), Buttigieg (55%), Harris (55%), Sanders (50%), Booker (42%), O’Rourke (38%) and Klobuchar (37%).
Usual caveats (it’s early, many are undecided) from DMR:
But the race is far from settled: Just one in five likely Democratic caucus goers say their minds are made up, while 63% say they could still be persuaded to support a different candidate.
“The data in this poll seem to suggest the field is narrowing, but my sense is there’s still opportunity aplenty,” Selzer said. “The leaders aren’t all that strong. The universe is not locked in.”
but:
Des Moines Register:
‘He’s not wearing well’: Joe Biden loses ground in Register’s Iowa Poll
Biden is viewed favorably by 66% of likely Democratic caucusgoers, compared to 29% who view him unfavorably. That’s positive territory, but his unfavorable numbers have nearly doubled since March, when he was viewed unfavorably by 15% and favorably by 81%.
“To see at the same time his favorability decline and his unfavorability double — that makes me think he’s not wearing well,” pollster J. Ann Selzer said.
Still, 60% of likely Democratic caucus goers are considering Biden in some way. That includes those who say he is their first choice, 20%, second choice, 10%, or someone they are actively considering, 30%. Only Warren has a larger footprint, with 71%.
Even as Warren has passed Biden in support, a plurality of Biden backers — 26% — say the Massachusetts senator is their second choice. The same is not true for Warren supporters, just 14% of whom list Biden as their second choice.
And some insight:
You read that right. Bernie gets 0% of Clinton voters in this poll. Hard to win with those numbers.
More from Dave Weigel/WaPo:
Bernie Sanders is struggling.
In June, when the “Selzer poll” found the senator from Vermont's support at just 16 percent, the Sanders campaign insisted that the pollster was not capturing the strength of its game plan. They claimed to have 26,000 “volunteers” in the state — a number based on initial sign-ups when he entered the race — and to be activating voters who had never caucused before and, as such, didn’t show up in public polls.
Since then, the Sanders campaign has parted with its Iowa political director and deputy director, admitting what it won’t say: The plan wasn’t working. Sanders is now less popular with Democrats than he was four years ago. Thirty-six percent of caucus goers view him unfavorably, when just 8 percent held that view in the autumn before the 2016 caucus. ...
Cory Booker is struggling and strangely happy to talk about it.
According to Booker’s campaign manager, Addisu Demissie, Iowans liked Booker but didn’t realize how precarious his situation was.
“They think he's fine, and they think they have more time to decide,” Demissie said on a conference call.
“They think that this thing is going to narrow over the coming months … but the point that we're trying to make very clearly is that the [candidates] offered to the Democratic Party come February, March, and April are being determined right now, in September. And these resources ultimately are what determines who is going to stay in this race.”
Yes, pay attention to the polls.
CNN:
Put another way, Biden isn't winning the electability argument in Iowa at this point. And if he can't win that argument, his campaign is likely in plenty of trouble.
Sanders' campaign is most definitely in trouble because, although he's at 16% among issue alignment voters, he's at just 9% among electability voters.
Speaking of polls, NBC:
NBC/WSJ poll: A record share of voters dislike Trump personally, but Democrats face challenges of their own
Voters overall also have doubts about Democrats' most progressive policy proposals. And many worry Joe Biden isn't up for the job.
A combined 69 percent of registered voters say they don’t like Trump personally, regardless of their feelings about his policy agenda. A record 50 percent say they dislike him personally and dislike his policies, while another 19 percent say that they dislike him but approve of his policies.
Just 29 percent say they like Trump personally, with 25 percent saying they also approve of his policy agenda and 4 percent saying they disapprove.
On this measure, the high degree of personal dislike for Trump differentiates him from his five most recent predecessors. Majorities of voters said they personally liked Obama, Clinton, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, even though they might disagree vigorously with their political agenda.
In fact, prior to Trump’s presidency, the highest share of voters saying they disliked the president personally — regardless of their views on his policies — was 42 percent for George W. Bush in March 2006, after Hurricane Katrina.
In international news:
AP:
Israeli president begins talks to form new government
Rivlin’s eventual candidate will have up to six weeks to form a coalition. If that fails, Rivlin could give another candidate for prime minister 28 days to form a coalition. And if that doesn’t work, new elections would be triggered yet again. Rivlin has said he will do everything possible to avoid such a scenario and no one appears interested in a third Israeli election within a year.
Last week’s vote happened because Netanyahu was unable to form a coalition after April’s election without the support of Lieberman, an unpredictable ally-turned-rival who has upended Israeli politics in recent months. The nationalist, yet secular, former defense minister is still being coy about whom he will recommend as the next prime minister.
Overhanging the whole process is Netanyahu’s pre-indictment hearing scheduled in two weeks, after which he could face charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three separate corruption cases. Netanyahu had hoped to secure a narrow majority of hard-line and religious parties that support granting him immunity from prosecution. With immunity now off the table, Netanyahu is desperate to remain in office despite the long odds.
Except maybe not, but even if Bibi does go first he can’t get to 61.
This is an evolving story. But here’s a capsule of a name floating around that you might not be familiar with, from Yair Rosenberg/Tablet. He’s the ‘other’ Blue and White leader besides Bennie Gantz:
Yair Lapid Wants to Teach Israelis to Understand American Jews. Will He Get the Chance?
The Israeli opposition leader has a very different vision for American and Israeli Jews than the current government
You can tell that Yair Lapid, the co-leader of Israel’s chief opposition party, used to be a journalist by how he is already thinking about how I will tell his story.
Midway through our conversation about how Israel should relate to American Jews, he pauses and declares, “I’m gonna tell you a story and I’m betting this is how you’re going to start your story.”
Suddenly, he is telling me about a road trip he recently took to Montana.
“When this campaign started, it was a mess,” he begins. “There was an election, and all of a sudden there was another election.” Lapid’s Blue and White, the centrist party that had just tied Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud in Knesset seats, now had to ramp up for an unprecedented second campaign, and the party was beset with questions about what to do next.
And lest we not forget prorogation decision this week (ORRRRDERRR!) from UK Supreme Court:
Independent:
Tactical voting by Remain supporters could defeat 60 Tories and end Boris Johnson’s reign at snap election, poll indicates
Huge numbers say they willing to lend their votes to defeat party committed to Brexit in their own constituency
Tactical voting could cost the Conservatives up to 60 seats at a snap general election and eject Boris Johnson from No 10, new polling has found.
Almost half of Labour supporters and an even higher proportion of Greens say they are ready to switch to the Liberal Democrats if it would help defeat the party committed to Brexit in their constituency.
More than a third of Lib Dem backers would make the opposite journey at the ballot box – potentially delivering 60 seats and a mortal blow to Mr Johnson’s hopes of winning a majority.
Guardian:
Boris Johnson would have no option but to recall MPs to Westminster if the supreme court rules he misled the Queen, senior legal sources told the Observer yesterday.
There is a growing belief in the legal community that the court will find against the government when it hands down its momentous verdict on Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament.
The prospect of the court finding against the prime minister has left the UK heading towards a “constitutional eruption of volcanic proportions”, according to another senior legal figure who asked not to be named. He said he also believed the case would go against the government.
Before the case, few thought the court would determine that Johnson’s advice to the Queen to suspend parliament for five weeks would be found unlawful. But over the course of the three-day hearing opinion has dramatically shifted.
“The dominant feeling among informed observers is that the government is on the ropes and it’s going to lose,” said Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London.
I mean, there are all sorts of things that politicians do wrong. But you can’t lie to the Queen. ORRRRDERRRR!