The Republican president, considered a lightweight and an ignoramus by many in Washington, suffered a setback in the offyear elections, losing several seats and effective control in the House, while maintaining and perhaps strengthening his party in the Senate. His leverage on domestic issues is reduced, but he retains the initiative on foreign policy and judgeships.
No matter how politically fractured the nation may seem, I believe that liberty-loving citizens of all ideologies can unite and agree:
Republicans held the Senate! Democrats took the House but by a narrower margin!
Did I just embarrass myself?
I've been arguing for months that the ideal outcome in the midterm elections to set up Donald Trump for a landslide re-election in 2020 is for Republicans to hold the Senate and narrowly lose the House.
Did former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg just take a page out of the playbook of Sen. Ed Muskie from half a century ago?
There are no eye sockets big enough for the eye-rolling I want to do when I hear American politicians express shock at political violence like the last week's domestic terror trifecta: A racist white man murdered two black people at a Kentucky grocery store, a white right-winger stands accused of mailing more than a dozen pipe bombs to Democratic politicians and celebrities and a white anti-Semite allegedly gunned down 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that his natural political instincts are superior to those of any other current figure.
On Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans will compete for the 42nd time in a nonpresidential-year contest -- a rivalry that goes back to 1854. That's the oldest such partisan competition in the world.
— Our final picks are coming Monday. In the meantime, our longstanding overall assessment — Democrats favored in House, Republicans bigger favorites in Senate — remains in place.
— Four ratings changes in the House.
"Libertarians believe that you should be as conservative or as liberal as you want to be as long as you don't want to force yourself on others," says Larry Sharpe, Libertarian candidate for governor of New York.
We live in bizarro times. Suddenly, it is controversial to state obvious, neon-bright truths. This week, it has become newsworthy to observe that illegal border-crossers who circumvent required medical screenings are a threat to America's public health and safety.
Here is Moore's rule of modern-day politics: The better the economy performs under President Donald Trump and the more successes he racks up, the more unhinged the left becomes. It's a near linear relationship. And it goes for media as well.
Saturday, in Pittsburgh, a Sabbath celebration at the Tree of Life synagogue became the site of the largest mass murder of Jews in U.S. history. Eleven worshippers were killed by a racist gunman.
The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is in its 17th year, with no end in sight. The U.S. has killed 1 million Iraqis over the last 15 years. We're killing Syrians, Yemenis and Somalis. None of the victims threatened us.
Do they live in two different worlds? White college graduate women favor Democrats over Republicans in House elections by a 62 to 35 percent margin. White non-college-graduate men favor Republicans over Democrats in House elections by a 58 to 38 percent margin.
By Thursday, the targets of the mailed pipe bombs had risen to nine: George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, John Brennan, Eric Holder, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Biden and Robert De Niro.
— The battles for the state governorships are getting more volatile as Election Day nears. We are moving three races, Kansas, Oregon, and South Dakota, to Toss-up.
— Republican odds of holding the Senate are as good as ever.
— The playing field continues to expand in the House.
Former President Selfie Stick is back in action, firing up Democrats before the midterms with his signature rallying cries:
Will you be able to retire? Maybe not.
Will your state pay what its politicians promised? Almost certainly not.
It seems like just yesterday that Democrats were telling us that under Obamacare, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."
