Avowed
Trump faces resistance....
The avowed opponents of President Trump are in open resistance to his reign.
And the critics are criticizing.
Some are usual suspects (New York Times columnists, say), but some are new and, for the White House, ominous.
* Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish were among those sporting anti-ICE buttons and slogans at the Grammys.
* Rand Paul is questioning enforcement methods.
* Federal judges are issuing rulings adverse.
* Boycotting artists appear to have shut down the Center Formerly Known as Kennedy.
* A comedian -- Trevor Noah -- has the president agitated after midnight:
* Vogue and Annie Leibovitz, pace the rest of the media, have given Gavin Newsom loving treatment and a platform to savage the incumbent — one Trump would never get.
* Hakeem Jeffries is playing hardball as solid as ICE on the current negotiations.
* Oh, the markets:
* Oh, the polls (which means THE PEOPLE).
Pew:
Fox, via the New York Post:
Democrats seem to be getting their mojo back as the midterm season heats up.
Democrats topped Republicans on the generic congressional ballot by a considerable six points, 52% to 46%, scoring the highest of any party on that metric in the history of the survey commissioned by Fox News.
The minority party also made massive gains on key issues, crushing Republicans on affordability by 14 points, health care by 21 points, helping the middle class by 14 points, transgender issues by 22 points, and even taxes by one point.
* And this canary in a Texas coalmine, via the Wall Street Journal, in a result that has most every Republican strategist freaking out:
A state-level Democratic win in a Texas region that voted for President Trump by 17 points threatens to diminish the GOP’s hopes for the midterm elections, in what one of the state’s most powerful Republicans dubbed a “wake-up call.”
Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss on Saturday for a state Senate seat by 14 points, in a solidly red district that includes part of Fort Worth.
While Republicans including Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had been sounding alarms about the North Texas race being too close for comfort in recent weeks, the 31-point-swing leftward was a surprise across the board. The loss is a “wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” Patrick wrote on social media after the race. “Our voters cannot take anything for granted.”
It is a bad sign for Republicans hoping to maintain a Senate majority and an already-slim majority in the House, said Jason Villalba, a former GOP state lawmaker who now leads the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, a research group.
“Whatever inroads the GOP was making recently among Latinos in Texas has begun to really revert back to what it was originally,” he said, pointing to Saturday’s shifts in Texas precincts with large Hispanic populations. “That will have implications around Texas and around the country….”
“Republicans just lost a district Trump won by 17 points- in Texas,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said on social media. “That’s not an anomaly, it’s a pattern. Democrats are building on our historic overperformance, and we’re not slowing down.”
Gonna be an interesting week for the POTUS…with wag the dog possibilities galore…..
To be continued…..