United States Congress 5: Still Looking for a Spine

[AnywhereButHere]

Trey Gowdy does look an awful lot like Max Headroom. Maybe someone updated his programming...

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I love this piece by Jennifer Rubin: "History to Paul Ryan: You’re wrong"

Spoiler

Outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) insists that “history is going to be very good to this majority.” Oddly, he posits that the tax plan will be the main reason for the anticipated rave reviews, although he also says a major regret was the debt, which the tax cuts expanded. Umm, that’s the best part of his legacy?

He also regrets not achieving immigration reform, but it was he and his fellow Republicans who refused to take up the Gang of Eight bill that passed the Senate overwhelmingly in 2013 and it was Ryan who would not put on the floor a bipartisan compromise on the “dreamers” that would have passed the House. So maybe we should regret Ryan’s tenure in Congress.

It’s hard to imagine history will treat him or this Congress well for a tax bill that at best gave a temporary sugar high to the economy, did not result in massive wage increases as advertised, did not simplify the code (to the contrary, it made it more complicated), worsened wealth inequality with massive tax breaks for the rich and squeezed revenue as we continued to spend with abandon.

In exchange for his great achievement — which is also weirdly responsible for one of his major regrets (the debt) — Ryan sacrificed a whole lot. We should ask if the highly flawed tax plan was worth:

• Allowing President Trump to retain his businesses, continue to receive foreign emoluments in contravention of the emoluments clause, employ family members with their own conflicts and conceal his tax records;
• Keeping Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, from which he smeared the FBI, released a misleading account of the application to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, helped expose a confidential intelligence source and postulated phony scandals — all of which did immense damage to the intelligence oversight process;
• Rebutting calls for an independent commission or a select committee to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election and/or calls to pass legislative protection for the special counsel;
• Passing a repeal of the Affordable Care Act without a suitable alternative, eviscerating protections for those with preexisting conditions, swelling the ranks of the insured to 20 million people, slashing Medicaid funding and raising costs for rural Americans;
• Declining to conduct meaningful oversight over numerous ethics scandals (from handling of security clearances to misuse of taxpayer money to Trump’s alleged disguised payments to former mistresses), the handling of Hurricane Maria or the child separation debacle (to name a few); and
• Refusing officially to rebuke Trump for his statements regarding Charlottesville, for his attacks on the courts, for his racist statements on “shithole” countries or for his assaults on the First Amendment (no resolutions, no hearings on any of these).

All that for a lousy, short-term tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and corporations? Seems like an awfully bad trade-off to me.

Once an advocate of enhancing congressional power and curtailing an overweening executive, Ryan presided over the worst abdication of congressional power in modern memory. The House became a handmaiden to Trump’s worst policy decisions and, by its silence and lack of oversight, an enabler of Trump’s corruption and divisiveness. The result was a political calamity as well — the loss of the most Republican seats since Watergate.

Ryan now has the chutzpah to complain about “tribalism,” but it was he and his band of Trump warriors who made partisan loyalty the end-all and be-all of their political existence.

Ironically, had Ryan ever stood up to Trump — insisting he abide by the emoluments clause at the outset of his presidency, conducting meaningful oversight of Cabinet officials’ misuse of funds, etc. — Ryan might have saved Trump from his own worst tendencies, saved his House majority and saved his own legacy. Instead, he shares Trump’s legacy of corruption, incompetence, divisiveness and racial strife. History certainly will judge Ryan, but I strongly suspect its verdict will be anything but “very good.”

 

[47of74]

I love this piece by Jennifer Rubin: "History to Paul Ryan: You’re wrong"

Spoiler Outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) insists that “history is going to be very good to this majority.” Oddly, he posits that the tax plan will be the main reason for the anticipated rave reviews, although he also says a major regret was the debt, which the tax cuts expanded. Umm, that’s the best part of his legacy?

He also regrets not achieving immigration reform, but it was he and his fellow Republicans who refused to take up the Gang of Eight bill that passed the Senate overwhelmingly in 2013 and it was Ryan who would not put on the floor a bipartisan compromise on the “dreamers” that would have passed the House. So maybe we should regret Ryan’s tenure in Congress.

It’s hard to imagine history will treat him or this Congress well for a tax bill that at best gave a temporary sugar high to the economy, did not result in massive wage increases as advertised, did not simplify the code (to the contrary, it made it more complicated), worsened wealth inequality with massive tax breaks for the rich and squeezed revenue as we continued to spend with abandon.

In exchange for his great achievement — which is also weirdly responsible for one of his major regrets (the debt) — Ryan sacrificed a whole lot. We should ask if the highly flawed tax plan was worth:

• Allowing President Trump to retain his businesses, continue to receive foreign emoluments in contravention of the emoluments clause, employ family members with their own conflicts and conceal his tax records;
• Keeping Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, from which he smeared the FBI, released a misleading account of the application to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, helped expose a confidential intelligence source and postulated phony scandals — all of which did immense damage to the intelligence oversight process;
• Rebutting calls for an independent commission or a select committee to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election and/or calls to pass legislative protection for the special counsel;
• Passing a repeal of the Affordable Care Act without a suitable alternative, eviscerating protections for those with preexisting conditions, swelling the ranks of the insured to 20 million people, slashing Medicaid funding and raising costs for rural Americans;
• Declining to conduct meaningful oversight over numerous ethics scandals (from handling of security clearances to misuse of taxpayer money to Trump’s alleged disguised payments to former mistresses), the handling of Hurricane Maria or the child separation debacle (to name a few); and
• Refusing officially to rebuke Trump for his statements regarding Charlottesville, for his attacks on the courts, for his racist statements on “shithole” countries or for his assaults on the First Amendment (no resolutions, no hearings on any of these).

All that for a lousy, short-term tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and corporations? Seems like an awfully bad trade-off to me.

Once an advocate of enhancing congressional power and curtailing an overweening executive, Ryan presided over the worst abdication of congressional power in modern memory. The House became a handmaiden to Trump’s worst policy decisions and, by its silence and lack of oversight, an enabler of Trump’s corruption and divisiveness. The result was a political calamity as well — the loss of the most Republican seats since Watergate.

Ryan now has the chutzpah to complain about “tribalism,” but it was he and his band of Trump warriors who made partisan loyalty the end-all and be-all of their political existence.

Ironically, had Ryan ever stood up to Trump — insisting he abide by the emoluments clause at the outset of his presidency, conducting meaningful oversight of Cabinet officials’ misuse of funds, etc. — Ryan might have saved Trump from his own worst tendencies, saved his House majority and saved his own legacy. Instead, he shares Trump’s legacy of corruption, incompetence, divisiveness and racial strife. History certainly will judge Ryan, but I strongly suspect its verdict will be anything but “very good.”

 

 

47 to Ryan: You’re a dumbass fuckhead who will go down in history as a guy who went down on that useless fuck in the White House.

[GreyhoundFan]

I have a feeling the Rs aren't going to know what hit them, Alexandria won't back down when they fling their crap at her:

 

[Howl]

Oh, there's more where that came from!  Mike and Sarah, Ya burnt!

She is going to tap into a huge contemporary population and set them on fire. 

[GreyhoundFan]

More from two new members of congress who aren't sitting back quietly:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

I like her style 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[fraurosena]

Here's a link to the transcript of the testimony Comey gave to the House Oversight Committee yesterday.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 thread with interesting  clips. 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "Senate Republicans are responsible for the most unethical and incompetent administration ever"

Spoiler

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), in a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal, blasted the paper’s editorial board for dismissing concerns about Thomas Farr, a judicial nominee with a track record of support for voter suppression schemes:

I am saddened that in the editorial “Democrats and Racial Division” (Dec. 1) you attempt to deflect the concerns regarding Thomas Farr’s nomination to the federal bench. While you are right that his nomination should be seen through a wider lens, the solution isn’t simply to decry “racial attacks.”

Scott makes a key point that should go well beyond Farr or judicial nominees: “We should stop bringing candidates with questionable track records on race before the full Senate for a vote.”

That raises a broader question: Why is the Senate bringing and confirming candidates with questionable track records — on race or otherwise — to a vote on the floor?

Consider the people brought to the floor and confirmed: judges rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association; an oil executive, Rex Tillerson, with no government experience, as secretary of state; a lawyer, Alex Acosta, whose supervision of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was roundly criticized and who participated in the atrociously lenient plea deal for serial child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; Ben Carson, a man utterly lacking in government experience or housing expertise, as secretary of housing and urban development; former congressman Tom Price for Health and Human Services despite his record of trading “shares worth more than $300,000 in about 40 health-related companies” while he was sitting on the House Ways and Means Committee and “working on measures that could affect his investments”; Steven Mnuchin, who had no government experience and had failed to disclose $100 million in assets, as treasury secretary; Wilbur Ross, who also lacked government experience and had been “forced to pay fines to the government several times, including as recently as August of 2016 to the SEC for failing to disclose fees his firm was charging … [and had] sat on the board of a company that agreed to pay over $2 billion in a settlement over its handling of subprime loans,” as commerce secretary; Scott Pruitt, who had repeatedly sued the Environmental Protection Agency and collaborated secretly with private industry to defeat federal regulations, as EPA administrator; and a hodgepodge of unqualified cronies for ambassadorships (a sin other administrations are guilty of as well).

Now, when Trump nominates Heather Nauert for ambassador to the United Nations — a woman who was until a year ago a Fox News personality and as a State Department spokesperson with zero experience in diplomacy — we can expect that, once more, the Republican-controlled Senate will issue its stamp of approval.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the least qualified president in history -- with a long record of bankruptcies, refusal to pay his bills and schemes such as Trump University -- should select unqualified and ethically challenged advisers and/or retain those whose ethical misdeeds and incompetence become apparent once in office. However, we cannot blame Trump alone for lousy appointments and staffing the government with unfit characters. The Constitution provides a check on the president’s ability to put shady characters in positions of power. It’s the current Republican Party that rejects that role and decides its job description is to enable Trump’s worst instincts. Just as House Republicans proved themselves incapable of fulfilling their oversight responsibilities, Senate Republicans prove themselves incapable of fulfilling their advice-and-consent duties.

The GOP would do well to heed Scott’s advice not only with regard to judges and not only with respect to race. It shouldn’t be so hard to reject unqualified nominees and those whose records suggest they’ll be poster boys for corruption in government. Moreover, if Senate Republicans started dinging just a few of the lousy nominees, the White House would get the message and be compelled to find more-qualified people. Senate Republicans would do themselves a favor (diminishing the perception they are invertebrates) and Trump a favor as well if they started saying “no” once in a while.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Orrin Hatch is okay with criminals running the country 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"New lawmakers pressure Congress to treat staff, interns better to bring more diversity to Capitol Hill"

Spoiler

When Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said last week that she would not only pay her interns, but also provide more than the minimum wage, the news had an immediate impact.

National media covered the announcement. Liberal lawmakers promised to follow suit. Even ­A-list celebrities took note.

“Thank you for doing this,” R&B hitmaker John Legend tweeted to his 12.3 million followers. “Unpaid internships make it so only kids with means and privilege get the valuable experience.”

Within hours, the mood had perceptibly shifted on a parochial concern that has vexed Congress for more than two decades, as the progressive ideals of one incoming lawmaker ran headlong into the disparities that have long persisted on Capitol Hill.

Ocasio-Cortez is not alone. With its historic diversity and public following, the incoming class of House Democrats is already exerting power on an institution that for years has defied reform on matters concerning the thousands of staff and interns who carry out its work.

Congress performs terribly on metrics related to staff diversity, workplace protections and employee pay and benefits. Advocates warn that the system is built to accept only the most privileged young people — often white, moneyed and with connections — who later fill the pipeline for Washington’s political and business establishment.

The system has gone unchallenged for years. But scrutiny by Ocasio-Cortez and her peers after the recent midterm elections is stirring hopes that Capitol Hill might be ready for change.

“Five years ago, I could have lit myself on fire talking about staff pay, and nobody would have paid attention,” said Daniel Schuman, policy director of Demand Progress and an advocate for institutional reform in Congress.

“Ocasio-Cortez isn’t a conventional politician, so she’s talking about things that nobody would ever talk about otherwise. And it feels like a breath of fresh air because it is one,” Schuman said.

The pressure to pay interns comes at an opportune moment, as congressional offices gain access to a small amount of funding to do it for the first time since the mid-1990s. The money is already available to Senate offices and will become available to House offices next year.

The pool of money was the result of lobbying by Pay Our Interns, a small D.C. nonprofit run by two 24-year-olds whose goal is to increase socioeconomic diversity among congressional staff.

Carlos Mark Vera, the group’s founder and executive director, said he persuaded several Democratic lawmakers to pay interns by noting the possible political fallout if they didn’t.

“In meetings this year, we would say: ‘Look, midterms are coming up. You’re going to have to talk about the minimum wage. Many voters see you as out of touch, right? So it looks very hypocritical if you’re telling people, ‘You need to pay your workers $15 an hour’ and you’re not paying your interns a peanut,’ ” Vera said.

Workplace issues on Capitol Hill such as staff pay, diversity and protection from sexual harassment have the potential to become relevant as Democrats begin competing for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

The party lagged behind the GOP on paying interns as of last year. Among the dozen-plus congressional Democrats who have been discussed as possible White House contenders, only eight currently offer stipends or an hourly wage to at least some interns.

At 29, Ocasio-Cortez is in a unique position to call attention to these issues. The former waitress has noted on Twitter and Instagram that she will receive more- generous benefits as a member of Congress than she did in the food service industry, including less expensive health insurance. She has also spoken about the challenge of paying for a D.C. apartment before she starts earning her new salary.

Vera said most incoming lawmakers would be attacked or dismissed if they talked like this.

“That’s not sticking on AOC — you can’t make that argument with her,” he said.

The debate highlights the fact that despite the power and prestige of jobs on Capitol Hill, Congress has faced accusations that it treats many of its workers poorly.

Most aides earn at least 20 percent less than their peers in the private sector, experts say. Staffing has been cut even as the U.S. population grows. Employee benefits vary widely. And the high level of stress is exacerbated by long hours and cramped workspaces.

As Ocasio-Cortez notes, lawmakers who are not wealthy struggle, too. Shuttling back and forth to Washington creates the need for two homes. Some members, including outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), have chosen to sleep in their offices to save money.

“It is a struggle, I’m not going to lie,” said Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.), who was a partner at a law firm before she came to Congress. “It’s worth it every day to be able to help my home district and to give the opportunities that I was so fortunate to have to the children of my district . . . but it is a sacrifice.”

A former Capitol Hill intern, Sewell is one of the handful of House Democrats who already offers paid internships, understanding how difficult it can be to work for free.

“I literally slept on a pull-out couch in Silver Spring, Md., from a distant cousin to make that happen,” she said of her House internship in the 1980s.

Congress is considerably less diverse than the general public. Paying interns, increasing staff salaries and creating lawmaker housing have been proposed as ways to lower the barriers to entry and allow a more diverse array of people to work on Capitol Hill.

Yet political concerns have generally cut against taking these steps.

Bradford Fitch, president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, said it’s almost impossible to get lawmakers to do anything that could be interpreted as “spending money on themselves.”

“That’s why they cut their own budgets,” Fitch said. “I remember talking to a senior staffer and asking, ‘Why are you doing this?’ And he said, ‘It’s for symbolic reasons.’ ”

One Democratic aide expressed concern that political pressure to offer paid internships could lead offices to eliminate unpaid internships, reducing opportunities for young people of all backgrounds.

“All of this attention is going to unintentionally hurt anyone who wants to be an intern,” said the aide, who started their career as an intern while also waiting tables and requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue on Capitol Hill. “This is going to backfire and make it worse and more undemocratic than before.”

Arguing that the number of internships on Capitol Hill is inflated, Vera said offices should consolidate positions to ensure each one involves substantive work and focus on offering paid spots to lower-income applicants.

“It wouldn’t hurt for some programs to reduce their intern classes,” he said. “You have them stapling and meanwhile, they’re taking out a loan to be there. I don’t know if that’s very helpful.”

The rising pressure on members was clear this week when Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for internship applications for the winter season and listed the position as unpaid. Under fire, the office said the language had been a mistake. Schumer plans to begin offering a stipend to “eligible interns” in January, the office said.

Of the current highest-ranking congressional leaders, only Schumer and Ryan do not already pay at least some interns, according to a survey by The Post.

Pay Our Interns listed each member of Congress and whether they paid interns in a report last year. Among Democratic lawmakers, only 3.6 percent in the House and 31 percent in the Senate offered paid internships. Among Republicans, 51 percent in the Senate and 8 percent in the House offered paid internships.

Shame soon became an effective tactic on the left, as prominent liberals began to change their policies.

Possible 2020 presidential contenders who pay at least some interns include Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren ­(D-Mass.), and Reps. Tim Ryan ­(D-Ohio) and Seth Moulton ­(D-Mass.).

Other possible candidates in the Senate, such as Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), do not pay interns. Gillibrand plans to begin offering a need-based stipend in January using the newly available funds, her office said. Klobuchar will start paying all interns on Jan. 1, her office said.

In the House, Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) — who has already declared his candidacy for president — does not pay interns, according to the 2017 report from Pay Our Interns. His office did not respond to questions from The Post.

Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) also do not pay interns, according to the report. Swalwell’s office said it is looking at ways to change the policy; Gabbard’s said she will ­begin paying interns in 2019.

Outgoing Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.), who lost his Senate bid against Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) last month, does not pay interns, the report said. His office did not respond to questions from The Post.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, not going to happen as long as Bitch McFuckstick is still in charge of the senate: "We are former senators. The Senate has long stood in defense of democracy — and must again."

Spoiler

Dear Senate colleagues,

As former members of the U.S. Senate, Democrats and Republicans, it is our shared view that we are entering a dangerous period, and we feel an obligation to speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security.

We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and the House’s commencement of investigations of the president and his administration. The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.

It is a time, like other critical junctures in our history, when our nation must engage at every level with strategic precision and the hand of both the president and the Senate.

We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.

During our service in the Senate, at times we were allies and at other times opponents, but never enemies. We all took an oath swearing allegiance to the Constitution. Whatever united or divided us, we did not veer from our unwavering and shared commitment to placing our country, democracy and national interest above all else.

At other critical moments in our history, when constitutional crises have threatened our foundations, it has been the Senate that has stood in defense of our democracy. Today is once again such a time.

Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest.

Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), Max Cleland (D-Ga.), William Cohen (R-Maine), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Al D’Amato (R-N.Y.), John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), David Durenberger (R-Minn.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Wyche Fowler (D-Ga.), Bob Graham (D-Fla.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Gary Hart (D-Colo.), Bennett Johnston (D-La.), Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Paul Kirk (D-Mass.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), David Pryor (D-Ark.), Don Riegle (D-Mich.), Chuck Robb (D-Va.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), John W. Warner (R-Va.), Lowell Weicker (I-Conn.), Tim Wirth (D-Colo.)

 

[AmazonGrace]

Fat chance, they've bypassed  the Trump did nothing wrong stage and have landed at the yeah he dun all that but laws are stupid and enforcing them would be tyranny stage 

[GreyhoundFan]

@AmazonGrace -- I agree with you. This is a good piece from the WaPo: "All the ludicrous defenses Republicans offer on the Russia scandal"

Spoiler

Defending Donald Trump has been a challenge and a headache for Republicans ever since he became their party’s nominee for president in 2016. After every appalling tweet, every racist statement and every ludicrous policy idea, Republicans are called upon to explain why this is really no big deal and everything’s fine.

But with Trump’s scandals deepening and the law closing in, justifying the president’s words and actions is getting harder and harder.

Fortunately for them, Republicans have always been good at this sort of thing, unencumbered as they are by logic or principle. So how are they reacting to the latest developments, including the allegation by federal prosecutors that Trump instructed his attorney Michael Cohen to break the law in concealing the hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels, the fact that 16 different Trump associates had contact with Russians during the campaign and the transition, and the growing list of indictments, convictions and guilty pleas?

Let’s look at some of their defenses:

Why should we bother investigating this stuff? Can’t we just forget about it and move on? Here’s what Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the incoming leader of House Republicans, told Fox News on Monday:

It looks like what [Democrats will] focus on is just more investigations. I think America is too great of a nation to have such a small agenda. I think there are other problems out there that we really should be focused upon. And my belief is, let’s see where we can work together — let’s move America forward.

McCarthy, you may recall, justified the seventh congressional investigation of Benghazi in 2015 by saying, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

Everybody makes mistakes, right? This defense implicitly acknowledges that Trump broke the law, but argues that everybody does it:

Thune begins here with a proxy version of the George Costanza argument: “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell ya, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon…” Really, what candidate hasn’t constructed a scheme to pay hush money to porn stars and Playboy models and concealed it from the public and the authorities?

The second part of Thune's argument, one Trump himself has also embraced, is that this was just a minor violation of complex campaign finance rules that everyone runs afoul of now and again. Even Barack Obama did!

But while Obama’s 2012 campaign was fined, that really was over paperwork issues, such as missing filing deadlines near the end of the race. There was never any allegation of intentional lawbreaking. In contrast, Trump and Cohen took a series of steps to conceal what they were doing, indicating that they knew it was potentially criminal.

They agreed (and we know this because Cohen taped the conversation) that Cohen would set up a shell company to hide the source of hush money payments to Trump’s alleged mistresses. When Cohen paid Daniels for her silence, Trump reimbursed him in installments with funds that were “characterized in Mr. Trump’s records as legal fees” (and if Trump deducted those payments from his taxes, he could be guilty of tax evasion). The fact that Trump lied about the payments is also a pretty clear indicator that it was more than just a paperwork whoopsie.

Michael Cohen is a liar, so Trump is innocent. “As long as Cohen’s a liar, I shouldn’t give much credibility to what he says,” says Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). “Jesus loves him, but everybody else thinks he’s an idiot,” says Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.). “He’s obviously a sleazeoid grifter. And if I were a prosecutor, I wouldn’t base a prosecution on evidence given to me by Mr. Cohen.” They didn’t specify what they think Cohen is lying about, perhaps because there’s so much documentary evidence of the scheme.

Why aren’t we talking about the things Trump did that weren’t illegal? Another common technique is to isolate some fact about the broader story, insist that it’s mundane and conclude that therefore there were no crimes anywhere. So Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says, “I don’t know what’s illegal about trying to build a hotel in Russia,” as though we can separate that from the possibility that Trump and those around him may have offered favors such as eased sanctions in exchange for the advance of his business interests.

Nah nah nah, I can’t hear you. Here’s what Sen Orrin G. Hatch told CNN’s Manu Raju:

Asked if he had any concerns that Trump was implicated, Hatch told CNN: “The Democrats will do anything to hurt this President.” Informed it was alleged by federal prosecutors in New York, Hatch said: “OK, but I don’t care, all I can say is he’s doing a good job as President.”

Whatever Trump or anybody else did, it wasn’t collusion. This is a convenient argument, because “collusion” is not a legal term and has a somewhat flexible meaning, which is why you can say anything wasn’t collusion. Meeting with Russians to try to get dirt on your opponent as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”? If they didn’t slice their palms and shake hands in an eternal blood oath, it’s not collusion.

Trump is innocent, says Trump. This may be the definitive statement of the president’s strategy, and one we’ll be hearing a lot:

Now let's step back and look at the broader context. Republicans offering up these ridiculous arguments probably feel that they have no choice, because their fates are inextricably tied to that of the president who leads their party. Of course, every politician is self-interested, so in theory there could come a point where your average Republican member of Congress no longer sees their self-interest in defending Trump, if doing so does more harm than good to their own political interests. But even as these scandals pile up, that point remains extremely far off.

Any worsening of Trump's scandals will always be bad news for the Republican Party in general, and something on the order of impeachment, resignation, or even just defeat in 2020 will be disastrous for every Republican. Don't forget that most of them represent conservative districts and states where they fear only opposition from the right. And even those who come from more closely divided areas still depend for their reelection on Republican voters mobilizing for them.

As a result, Trump could murder a puppy on live TV and about the worst thing they’d bring themselves to say about it would be, “That was unfortunate, but it’s time we all moved on.” No matter how hard it will be to do with a straight face, they’ll have to keep defending him.

 

[AmazonGrace]

That puppy had it coming

[onekidanddone]

2 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

That puppy had it coming

Think of all the puppies he didn't kill

[GreyhoundFan]

6 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Think of all the puppies he didn't kill

Besides, Hillary and Obama had a kitten-killing ring headquartered in the basement of an Ethiopian restaurant in DC.

[AmazonGrace]

Yeah he has a puppy killing ring but what does it have to do with Russian collusion?

[onekidanddone]

3 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Yeah he has a puppy killing ring but what does it have to do with Russian collusion?

Russian Wolf Hound

[AmazonGrace]

Good news for all the morons: you can be dumb as rock yet get elected