The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

The Biden Machine rolls on in Michigan to a huge lead in the latest Detroit Free Press poll.

The damage done to President Donald Trump's standing in Michigan following recent protests outside the White House and in cities across the U.S. may have been even greater than originally believed, a new poll released to the Free Press said Tuesday.

Two weeks ago, EPIC-MRA of Lansing, a polling firm that does work for the Free Press, released a survey showing former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, leading Trump 53%-41% in Michigan, a 12-point edge.

But a second poll, started on May 31, a day after the first poll began, and concluded a day later than the first poll, on June 4, showed Biden leading Trump 55%-39% in Michigan, a 16-point margin. As it did for the first poll, EPIC-MRA surveyed 600 randomly selected likely voters for the second one, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The second poll also showed: 

The percentage of Michiganders surveyed who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction increased from 63% in the first survey to 70% in the second. The percentage who believe the U.S. is headed in the right direction fell from 30% to 22%.
The percentage of those with a negative view of Trump as president rose from 56% to 61%, as the percentage of those with a positive view fell from 42% to 38%. 

While the same number, 51%, said they would vote to replace Trump in November, the percentage saying they would vote to reelect him fell, from 38% to 33%. The percentage of those saying they would consider voting for someone other than the president rose from 8% to 13%. 

While it's not known for certain what caused the change, the second survey added a day of polling in the immediate aftermath of law enforcement and military personnel on June 1 forcefully clearing peaceful protesters from a public square outside the White House. They used pepper spray and smoke canisters to move the crowd so Trump could have his photo takenholding a Bible outside St. John's Church, which had been damaged in another protest. 

If Trump is truly behind 12-16 points in battleground Michigan, he is done, toast, kaput.

If the election were held today.

It won't be.  We have a long way to go and everything could change in the space of a day, let alone five months.

But Trump is losing.  We have to make sure that remains the case.

This Biden Ad, featuring Lindsey Graham, is one of the best. pic.twitter.com/A8BhnfTaXJ

— F*ck All Of Y'all Racist B*tches (@KHiveQueenBee) June 16, 2020

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

The Senate GOP was never going to convict Trump, but now they are openly mocking the idea of Senate trial, and it's becoming more likely that the entire impeachment process will simply be disposed of with a single vote.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a close ally of President Donald Trump, said he will do everything in his power to quickly end an expected impeachment trial in the Republican-led Senate. 

"This thing will come to the Senate, and it will die quickly, and I will do everything I can to make it die quickly," the South Carolina Republican said Saturday during an interview with CNN International's Becky Anderson at the Doha Forum in Qatar. 

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday approved two articles of impeachment against the President, paving the way for a final vote on the House floor expected next week. That will set up the Senate trial, for which lawmakers are now gearing up.

Asked if it was appropriate for him to be voicing his opinion before impeachment reaches the Senate, Graham replied, "Well, I must think so because I'm doing it." 

"I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here," Graham said, adding, "What I see coming, happening today is just a partisan nonsense." 

In his opening remarks at the forum, Graham predicted the impeachment process would be over around mid-January.

They're not even pretending anymore that the Constitution exists.  It's whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it.  The Senate oath to be an impartial juror suring a Senate trial?  Meaningless, because they simply don't consider Democrats to have any legitimacy at all.

The Founders were never prepared for villainy of this nature, and so America will suffer, maybe for decades.  There was never any possibility set aside to deal with the notion that an entire political party who controlled the Senate and White House would simply commit mass crimes and that enough people would cheer those crimes on because they figured they would benefit from them, and that the political opposition would be rendered helpless.

I know we're short of the darkest days of American history, but we're pretty close and getting closer.

They Fought The Law And The Law's Gone

The lawless Trump regime rolls on, with rank and file regime bureaucrats now openly thumbing their noses at laws they have no intention of following, will never be prosecuted for, and will get away with breaking repeatedly.

Lynne Patton, a regional administrator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote last week that she may have broken a federal law meant to prevent officials from politicizing their government positions, but said that even if that were the case, she “honestly” didn’t care.

“Just retweeted this amazing tweet from both of my Twitter accounts — professional and personal,” Patton wrote on Facebook last week, pointing to a message that championed her boss, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, but was critical of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “It may be a Hatch Act violation. It may not be.”

“Either way,” she continued, “I honestly don’t care anymore.”

The 1939 Hatch Act prohibits officials working in the executive branch from using their “official authority for political purposes” and is meant to prevent “federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity,” according to the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Many members within the Trump administration have run afoul of the law before, and last November, six White House officials were reprimanded for using their social media accounts in violation of the Hatch Act.

Patton, who is paid an annual salary of $161,900, according to 2017 figures, is tasked with overseeing one of HUD’s largest regions with a budget in the billions of dollars. But when someone pointed out her potential lawbreaking, Patton doubled down on Sunday evening, mocking those critical of her as “lazy internet parrots” and “liberal snowflakes” on her personal Twitter account.

Patton is actually under investigation for previous possible Hatch Act violations, but no punishment has been meted out so far, and it's unlikely any will. She knows she's a good friend of the Trump family, and that's all that matters.

We've now reached the point where Republicans openly mock the rest of us because they know there will be no consequences.

GOP senators say that if the House passes articles of impeachment against President Trump they will quickly quash them in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has broad authority to set the parameters of a trial.

While McConnell is required to act on articles of impeachment, which require 67 votes — or a two-thirds majority — to convict the president, he and his Republican colleagues have the power to set the rules and ensure the briefest of trials.

“I think it would be disposed of very quickly,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“If it’s based on the Mueller report, or anything like that, it would be quickly disposed of,” he added.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to McConnell’s leadership team, said “nothing” would come of impeachment articles passed by the House.

Given the Senate GOP firewall, Cornyn, who’s also a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he doubts that Democrats will commence the impeachment process.

“It would be defeated. That’s why all they want to do is talk about it,” he said. “They know what the outcome would be.”

Rule of law no longer exists in America.  Not for the Trump regime, anyway.

It's (Still) Mueller Time, Con't

Please remember that the obstruction of justice investigation and other investigations into the Trump regime are continuing, and cooperation of Mueller witnesses remain ongoing, while any congressional testimony from Mueller himself remains in permanent limbo because the White House is invoking executive privilege over anything he might have to say involving the Mueller report.

The White House’s decision to assert executive privilege over special counsel Robert Mueller’s report could prevent Mueller from answering lawmakers questions during a potential testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the WSJ, discussions over that matter have stalled negotiations about Mueller’s possible testimony. The executive privilege assertion could prevent Mueller from speaking about anything that’s not included in the redacted version of the report. The Justice Department’s lawyers are reportedly studying the situation and are expected to offer both sides guidance soon.

But that doesn't mean Mueller's hands are tied.  In the last 24 hours we got two very interesting pieces of information released, first that former Trump National Security Adviser (and convicted felon) Michael Flynn is still cooperating and is offering new insight on possible obstruction of justice by somebody not Donald Trump according to newly revealed Mueller probe court information.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn told investigators that people linked to the Trump administration and Congress reached out to him in an effort to interfere in the Russia probe, according to newly-unredacted court papers filed Thursday. 

The court filing from special counsel Robert Mueller is believed to mark the first public acknowledgement that a person connected to Capitol Hill was suspected of engaging in an attempt to impede the investigation into Russian election interference.

“The defendant informed the government of multiple instances, both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could’ve affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation,” the court papers say. 

Flynn even provided a voicemail recording of one such communication, the court papers say. 

Prosecutors did not identify any of the people who reached out to Flynn, but said the special counsel's office was in some instances "unaware of the outreach until being alerted to it by the defendant." 

No other details were provided in the filing, but the Mueller report noted that President Donald Trump's personal lawyer left a voicemail message for Flynn in late November 2017 that addressed the possibility of him cooperating with the government. 

"[I]t wouldn't surprise me if you've gone on to make a deal with ... the government," the attorney said in the voicemail message, according to Mueller. 

[I]f... there's information that implicates the President, then we've got a national security issue [so] ... we need some kind of heads up. Just for the sake of protecting all our interests if we can .... [R]emember what we've always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains."

One: Mueller is still playing hardball.  Bill Barr better watch his step.

Two: Did you catch the "and Congress" part of obstruction of justice there?  There are two possibilities that I've seen people floating as to which member of Congress, and they're both GOP Intelligence Committee heads.  The first is House GOP Devin Nunes, who if you'll recall had to recuse himself from the Mueller mess because he kept leaking info to the White House.  The other is of course Senate Intelligence Committee chair Lindsey Graham, who has done a complete heel turn and has become Trump's loyal bully.

If Flynn has a recording of Graham or Nunes actually asking him to cover for Trump, and that's going to become public very soon, well, that would explain the entire week in Trump nastiness, wouldn't it?

That brings us to the second bit of info: a judge has indeed ordered that voicemail to made public, along with Flynn's 2016 conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak which got him into trouble in the first place.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered that prosecutors make public a transcript of a phone call that former national security adviser Michael Flynn tried hard to hide with a lie: his conversation with a Russian ambassador in late 2016.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington ordered the government also to provide a public transcript of a November 2017 voice mail involving Flynn. In that sensitive call, President Trump’s attorney left a message for Flynn’s attorney reminding him of the president’s fondness for Flynn at a time when Flynn was considering cooperating with federal investigators.

The transcripts, which the judge ordered be posted on a court website by May 31, would reveal conversations at the center of two major avenues of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. So far they have been disclosed to the public only in fragments in court filings and the Mueller report.

Sullivan also ordered that still-redacted portions of the Mueller report that relate to Flynn be given to the court and made public.

Sullivan’s orders came very shortly after government prosecutors agreed to release some sealed records in Flynn’s case. The release was in response to a motion filed with the court earlier this year by The Washington Post, which argued that the public deserved to know more about Flynn’s role in key events and cooperation with investigators.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to one felony count of making a false statement to FBI investigators about his contact with the ambassador and awaits sentencing.

So yeah, the Washington Post argued that if Flynn cooperated, there's no reason to redact his role in the Muller investigation.  A judge agreed, and we should have that information within the next two weeks.  Flynn's lawyers wanted this information out in the public too in order to argue that Flynn's sentence should be shortened because of the "value" of his cooperation, which they want the country to be able to judge openly.

That's going to be a bad day for Trump when it comes out.  But remember, there's at least one member of Congress who is facing obstruction of justice charges too.  And all the executive privilege in the world won't save them.

It's All About Revenge Now, Con't

The Trump regime is gearing up for multiple Senate GOP investigations and Justice Department probes into Democrats and the FBI who dared to question Trump, and the political nightmare is just beginning.

Trump and his allies, seeking to amplify claims that the FBI spied on his 2016 campaign, are seizing on news reports and statements by Attorney General William P. Barr to launch a political rallying cry they view as an antidote to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings.

Dismissed by critics as an outlandish conspiracy theory, so-called “spygate” is fast becoming a central feature of the Trump campaign as it seeks to go on offense in the wake of a report that identified 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump. The campaign is publicly calling for criminal investigations into former FBI officials, making “spygate” fundraising pitches and selling spy-themed merchandise. The goal, officials said, is to turn the Russia probe into a political winner that could help him secure another term.

“After two years of [investigations] and being vindicated, and now in fact the tables are turning in that the investigators will be investigated, there’s a certain amount of righteous indignation that’s warranted,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s reelection bid. “The president has already shown that he wants to talk about it. He’s been tweeting about it. I’m sure he’ll talk about it at rallies. It’s something that the campaign will continue to point to.”

Murtaugh highlighted a Thursday article from the New York Times describing how the FBI sent an investigator posing as a research assistant to meet with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in 2016 — a covert effort to better understand the campaign’s links to Russia. Murtaugh said it was “astounding” that the story had not received as much media coverage as some Russia-related episodes unearthed by Mueller.

Referring to the story on Friday, Trump said it was “bigger than Watergate, as far as I’m concerned.”

Trump has long sought to paint his political opponents as criminally suspect, spending much of 2016 leading “Lock her up!” chants that targeted his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Before the end of the month, I'd assume the investigations and subpoenas will be announced.  They will come at a steady stream, and the American public by this summer will be sick and tired of "both sides" again.

Trump is going to win this thing if Democrats keep playing by his rules.  Any investigation that the Democrats can open, the Senate GOP can, and will.  If that happens, and it will, then Democrats have to be ready to go to the mat.

A lot of things will be decided in our history over the next few weeks, starting with the contempt fight over Bill Barr on Monday.

Last Call For It's Mueller Time, Con't

Meanwhile, Attorney General Bill Barr is gearing up for yet another investigation into the Mueller investigation.

Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by Justice Department and FBI officials, including actions taken during the probe of the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter.

This indicates that Barr is looking into allegations that Republican lawmakers have been pursuing for more than a year -- that the investigation into President Donald Trump and possible collusion with Russia was tainted at the start by anti-Trump bias in the FBI and Justice Department.

“I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016,” Barr told a House panel on Tuesday.

Barr’s inquiry is separate from a long-running investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. The FBI declined to comment. Barr said he expected the inspector general’s work to be completed by May or June.

The issue came up as Barr testified before a Democratic-controlled House Appropriations subcommittee. Most of the questioning concerned demands for Barr to give lawmakers Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report and the evidence behind it. But the issue is sure to get more attention when Barr appears Wednesday before the panel’s GOP-led Senate counterpart. 

Republican Lindsey Graham, who’s a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has already pledged to pursue the issue in the Judiciary Committee he leads.

The practical upshot of all this is that by July or so, Barr and Graham expect to have the Mueller report safely buried in legal limbo awaiting SCOTUS, and that the IG report and Senate investigation will both call for a special counsel, which Barr will appoint, to investigate Carter Page's FISA applications and the FBI and invariably the Clintons and Loretta Lynch, and all this circus will be drowning out the Democrats for the next year and change.

They really believe they've won now, and that they will get away with it, right into a second Trump term with no holds barred and no accountability whatsoever, depending on the twin threats of a Trump police state and armed Trump voters to keep liberals in line.

That's their plan, anyway.  How successful that will be is up to us.

Last Call For Enemies Of The People

Senate Republicans are now signaling that they will spend the next two years investigating Obama officials as traitors to Dear Leader Trump in order to exact revenge for the Mueller probe.

Republicans are setting their sights on top Obama-era officials as they plan their own probe into the 2016 election. 

Eager to move on from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and the Trump campaign, GOP senators are gearing up to investigate the investigators. The idea is gaining traction with the Republican caucus, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(Ky.). 

Mueller’s report hasn’t been released yet, but Republicans have seized on a four-page letter from Attorney General William Barr that summarized key conclusions of the two-year probe, including that Mueller "did not establish" that President Trump or members of his campaign coordinated or colluded with Moscow in its election interference. 

"Republicans believe that the FBI and [Department of Justice] — the top people — took the law in their own hands because they wanted [Hillary] Clinton to win and Trump to lose," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during an interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto as part of a media blitz discussing his plans for an investigation. 

He said that he will be looking at "abuse" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application process and the counterintelligence operation into Trump’s campaign, adding that "there will be a lot of inquiry as to how this all happened." 

GOP senators are already naming former officials who would be at the top of their lists to question, including former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. 

"The Judiciary Committee has primary jurisdiction and doing oversight of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and so that ... is something we need to do. Trying to find out how this thing got off the rails and hopefully prevent it from happening again," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Cornyn rattled off a list of Obama-era officials he would want to speak with, including Lynch, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, but he homed in on Comey. 

"I think Director Comey is probably near the top. He’s the one who said that his intention of leaking memos of his conversation was designed to prompt the appointment of a special counsel. It just strikes me as some vindictiveness and animus toward the president motivating a lot of the action," Cornyn said. 

Graham, who earlier this month teased that he wants to bring in Comey, added that the former official would be called to publicly testify and "will answer for your time as FBI director." 

Expect the next 20 months or more to be endless Senate investigations in order to "prove" Democrats are traitors and enemies of the people who must be "dealt with".  They won't stop until they can lock up Clinton, Obama, and everyone involved in them.

It's now about vengeance.

BREAKING: It's Not Mueller Time

As expected, Attorney General Bill Barr has released almost nothing of the actual Mueller report, but summarizing its conclusions as "no collusion, no obstruction."

Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided the evidence was “not sufficient” to support a prosecution of the President for obstruction of justice.

“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Barr quotes special counsel Robert Mueller as saying.

Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the evidence gathered in the special counsel’s investigation was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense,” Barr wrote.

Republicans disagree, with Sen. Lindsey Graham calling this a "complete removal of the cloud" over Trump's head, and ranking member Rep. Doug Collins officially requesting an end to the House Judiciary probe into the Trump regime.

Barr says that the DoJ is still "processing" the report but will decide on releasing more at a later date.

If you believe that, I have a small moon to sell you.

The Mueller report was never going to save us from the Trump regime.

We have to do that.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The House has unanimously passed a resolution urging the release of the Mueller report to the public, in a move that I'm even surprised by.  It's very telling that no Republican in the House would go on record to say they were against it, not even the regular slate of loonies, racists, and assholes like Gohmert, Steve King, or my district's own Thomas Massie (he had the shame to be a coward and vote "present".)

The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the Justice Department to make special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings and full report public and available to Congress.

The 420-0 vote came after a fiery debate on the House floor, during which some Democratic lawmakers were admonished for their criticisms of President Donald Trump.

Republicans said the resolution was unnecessary and a waste of time, but ultimately joined Democrats to approve it. Four Republicans — Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voted “present.”

Democrats used the resolution to put pressure on Attorney General William Barr, who during his Senate confirmation hearings did not commit to making Mueller’s highly anticipated findings public.

“A vote for this resolution will send a clear signal to both the American people and to the Department of Justice that Congress believes transparency is a fundamental principle necessary to ensure that government remains accountable to the public,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the lead sponsor of the effort.

It's still a pro move by Pelosi.  Mitch McConnell will be under a lot of pressure for a similar Senate resolution, especially after the vote against Trump's emergency declaration nonsense, but Lindsay Graham blocked it by objecting to the vote, calling for a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and Democrats.

Still, yes, this puts scores of House Republicans on record saying they want the Mueller report released to the public, and they won't be able to dodge it.

The question is why.  After more than a year of refusing to protect the Mueller report, suddenly 420 of 435 Representatives signed on to this bill with no real warning it was coming.

Either the Mueller report is so mild that Republicans are more than happy to approve its release, or the table is being set for Mike Pence.  This resolution coming a day after Pelosi said that there would have to be overwhelming evidence to impeach still means both of those possibilities are in play.

The "not worth it" caveat makes me unfortunately think that it's the first scenario, especially when combined with Thursday's news that Mueller's top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, is planning to leave the Mueller team.

I want to be wrong here. We'll see if I am.

The Party Of Trump, Con't

Once again, it's worth noting that the Republican party is the party of Trump, and Trump is the Republican party.  The cult of personality is so pervasive now, the GOP so metastasized now, that removal of Trump, the cancer on the party, would kill the patient, and yet the cancer is so widespread that not removing it will also be fatal.  Ryan Lizza asks Republicans what they think of Dear Leader, and the answer is grim resignation to being the party of Trump.

As the country awaits whatever conclusions Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation brings, the most important question in politics may be whether there is any red line Trump could cross and lose significant party support. Four and a half decades ago, Republicans stuck with Richard Nixon until incontrovertible evidence of his crimes emerged. Democrats never abandoned Bill Clinton because they believed his misdeeds weren’t impeachable. What is the red line for a contemporary GOP increasingly built around a personality cult? I put that question to a dozen Republicans in the House and Senate, a mix from across the ideological spectrum and from every region of the country. The conversations revealed a lot about the Trump GOP, but the red line, with respect to Trump’s behavior generally, or his conduct specific to the Mueller probe, was vanishingly thin and difficult to detect. And every time you think you see it—pee tape, porn-star liaison, erratic diplomacy, threats to fire Mueller—it keeps moving. As Republican senator Jeff Flake of Arizona put it, “I don’t know that there is one.” 

Flake never supported Trump and has been the president’s most consistent critic in Congress, though one who still votes for much of his agenda. When Flake was deciding whether to run for reelection this year, one of his political consultants told him there was only one path: “You’ve got to be okay with Trump’s policies or be quiet about them and be okay with his behavior or be quiet about it.” Flake decided to retire instead. 

Jenkins, the congresswoman from Kansas, relayed a conversation she recently had with a factory owner back home, who told her that while the guys on his shop floor “hate” Trump—they are from the Bible Belt, after all, she noted—“they love what he’s doing.” She then offered the most honest explanation I’ve heard for this phenomenon. “It’s kind of like supporting your favorite team and there’s a talented trash-talking personality on the other team,” she said. “That player is the worst human being on the face of the earth, but if that same talented player is on our team, well, you know, they’re our team, so we give him a pass.” 

Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, was known as one of Trump’s most vociferous critics. I caught Graham on his cell phone while he was visiting Iraq in July. During the 2016 campaign, he called Trump “a kook,” adding, “I think he is unfit for office.” Graham is now much more diplomatic, offering himself up as a kind of translator between the #NeverTrump movement and the party’s base. On the plus side for him were the judges, the tax cuts, the fight against ISIS, and the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement. On the other side were Trump’s “uncertainty about our commitment” to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria; his trade policy; and his lack of seriousness about Russian meddling in American elections. “This constant minimizing of Putin and his agenda—very problematic.” 

Those were his toughest words for Trump. I was surprised how much he was soft-selling his well-known disagreements with the man on foreign policy, especially Trump’s retreat from defending our democratic allies. I asked him if the American president was still the leader of the free world. He paused for five seconds before telling me, “America First is one or two things. It’s an understanding that we’re a unique country and it’s about burden sharing,” he said. “You gotta remember, he won. I think when the president talks of how other countries are taking advantage of us, we’re fighting their wars, we’re spending too much for their defense, that resonates with people.” He never did answer the question.

Earlier this year, Graham made the case that if Trump fired Mueller, “it would be the end of President Trump’s presidency.” I asked if he still believed that about Mueller. He let out a deep sigh. “He’s done such a number on this guy, I don’t know,” he said, referring to Trump’s attacks on Mueller’s credibility. 

Leonard Lance, a congressman from New Jersey, was one Republican, albeit a moderate, who volunteered a red line: “Personal collusion by Trump with the Russians during the campaign.” But if Republicans keep the House and the Senate this fall, Trump will have a political fortress protecting him in Washington. That prospect has led a few anti-Trump Republicans, like Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008, to openly support a Democratic takeover of Congress. In their minds, there is no red line for the GOP. I came to the same conclusion after my hours of interviews. 

Conservative Trump critics fear becoming the next Sanford and stay quiet—what Flake and others call the “don’t poke the bear” mind-set. Meanwhile, many of the moderate anti-Trump Republicans are leaving office. Congressman Ryan Costello, a Republican from Pennsylvania who decided to quit (redistricting gave him a bluer constituency), said, “If I were running for reelection, every single time that I saw on the TV screen that the president was going to hold another rally, I’d be like, ‘Oh, fuck!’ Because he’s going to say fifty things that aren’t accurate.”

They're leaving rather than opposing him, or stopping him, or attacking him.  They are retiring in near-record numbers.  They know they're done in November.  They're going to let the Democrats deal with him, because the GOP doesn't have the courage, and because nearly 90% of Republican voters love Trump anyway.

And so it goes.

The Right's Hagel Finagle

Jen Rubin is a meta-hack, but she's a pretty reliable barometer of the winger zeitgeist, and the wingers are pretty pissed off that senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham seem to be crumbling on Chuck Hagel.

In any event, McCain and Graham shouldn’t fold when the going gets tough. If this nominee is as bad as they say, they should, and indeed must, filibuster him if the White House (unlike the Bush White House) and the Democrats (unlike the GOP senators of yesteryear) won’t do the right thing.

Here's the thing, when Susan Rice was floated for Secretary of State, Republicans readily had John Kerry's name at hand because they wanted a shot at his seat.  But have you heard Republicans mention a possible replacement for Chuck Hagel?

Not to my knowledge.  We hear how awful, incompetent, and even anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel supposedly is, but nobody seems to have a name of somebody who would be an acceptable replacement.

Funny how that works.