Trump, Dump, Afront & Cnut

Trump wins the media war, battle by battle There is a reason why the mainstream news media and the Democratic Party are in an uproar: They’ve been left out of the political equation by a player who understands the game better than they do. And that player is President Trump, who has conducted a masterful war against his media foes over the last 72 hours, launching a series of strategic tweets that deemed the hostile press not only “fake” but “fraudulent.” The president himself declared that he was the victor to his 31 million Twitter followers, adding one more telling tweet that summarizes his very effective skill set: “My use of social media is not Presidential — it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL,” Mr. Trump advised. “Trump is Trump. He does what he does, which is what he did during the campaign and before. And now, in the White House, he has enlisted his media adversaries, wittingly or not, in a campaign against ‘fake news’ that resonates with his core supporters,” writes Byron York, a columnist for the Washington Examiner, who says that those who engage in “sloppy fights” with Mr. Trump often emerge diminished in the aftermath. “President Trump knows how to communicate directly with his supporters by using Twitter and having campaign-style rallies. His supporters like this because they see President Trump fight the mainstream media,” writes J. Marsalo, a contributor to American Thinker, who adds that journalists fear Mr. Trump is making them irrelevant — and that he is now coming to own the “playing field.” This phenomenon has been building for a while. In March, a Morning Consult poll made this conclusion: Trump scandals “make his voters like him more,” revealing that, among other things, Mr. Trump’s claim that the news media “is an enemy of the people” caused his favorability numbers to rise by 31 percentage points among those who support him. NY Times Editorial Board Emits Primal Scream Over Neil Gorsuch Justice Gorsuch, who was confirmed less than three months ago, has already staked his claim as one of the most conservative members of the court. So far, so good, but that’s not the primal scream. Here’s the primal scream (emphasis added): … [H]owever many setbacks [Mitch McConnell] might suffer over health care reform or other parts of the Republican agenda, he knows he has already won the biggest fight of all: the theft of a Supreme Court seat from President Obama, the installation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the preservation of the court’s conservative majority for years to come. The problem isn’t so much Justice Gorsuch’s judicial ideology, which is so far unsurprising. Presidents choose justices who they believe will rule in a way that aligns with their own views, and right-wing groups had long ago flagged Justice Gorsuch as a reliable conservative. He would surely have been a top choice of many Republican presidents. The problem is that he’s sitting in the seat that by rights should be occupied by Judge Garland. Had Mr. Garland been confirmed, the court would have had a majority of Democratic-appointed justices for the first time in almost half a century…. Mr. Trump will be out of power by 2025 at the latest. But thanks to Mr. McConnell, Justice Gorsuch, and whoever else might join him in the next couple of years, will entrench a solid conservative majority on the court for far longer. Disney to Overhaul Classic Pirates of the Caribbean Ride to Appease PC Crowd Still paid? Secret Service agent who won't 'take bullet' forTrump After proclaiming on social media that she would not “take a bullet” for President Donald Trump, a United States Secret Service agent is still being paid with American tax dollars, while receiving little reprisal for her declared breach of duty.