Another Out-Of-Office Republican Sounds The Alarm Against Trump

I was no fan of Bill First (R-TN) when he was in the Senate (1995-2006), especially not while he served as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 until he retired, living up to a self-imposed term limits pledge. After he left the Senate, he said he would have voted for the Affordable Care Act and has urged Republicans to stop trying to repeal it. Yesterday, the Washington Post carried an OpEd by Frist, The Senate I led put country over party. This one must do the same for Robert Mueller, urging Republicans to actively support the Mueller investigation. No tweet from Trumpanzee... yet. He doers recognize that the GOP is a different party than it was when he was in office a little over a decade ago and takes a subtle swipe at them: "the good people still serving in the Senate." As opposed to the enablers and hacks?

When I retired from the U.S. Senate in 2007 as its majority leader, my parting words were a prayer for my colleagues to rise above the passions of the moment and protect the institution as a bulwark for our country’s enduring values. The Senate I served in was not devoid of partisanship, nor should it be, but my hope was that patriotism would always take priority over party.

It is with some trepidation that I offer thoughts on how the good people still serving in the Senate should address a current crisis, but staying silent is no longer an option. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is under assault, and that is wrong. No matter who is in the White House, we Republicans must stand up for the sanctity of our democracy and the rule of law.

Certainly, my former colleagues face difficult pressures. They go to work in a Washington that is divided. They want to ensure a Supreme Court that, like most of our citizens, understands that government power must be limited. They want a fair tax code that supports a growing economy. They want less regulation. By those measures, President Trump is a great partner at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. But we can’t look the other way as, tweet by tweet, with each new assault on the Justice Department’s independence, the bedrock principles of our party crumble.

I’m a Republican because I stand for small government and also, as a physician, for the dignity of every life. But I am also a Republican because I believe in the rule of law. Republicans must fight for that principle today-- even if it means pushing back against a Republican administration. As a party, we can’t let the president or his allies erode the independence of the Justice Department or public trust in the vital work of law enforcement. That would be true even if the stakes were much lower, but it is overwhelmingly so when it comes to investigating foreign interference in our elections. Congress must ensure that Mueller is able to do his job without interference or intimidation.

Nobody knows what the special counsel’s investigation will conclude. I, for one, do not think the president colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the 2016 election. But I do believe Putin purposely tried to undermine our democratic process.

It isn’t easy to tell a president of your own party that he is wrong. But the assault on Mueller’s investigation does not help the president or his party. When Trump talks about firing the special counsel or his power to pardon himself, he makes it seem as though he has something to hide. The president must remember that only Mueller’s exoneration can lift the cloud hanging over the White House.

The special counsel’s investigation is not about Trump. It is about our national security. Every American should be rooting for Mueller’s success in determining precisely how Russia interfered in our fundamental democratic process. I had no illusions about the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and I have none about Putin now. Mueller’s most recent court filings indicate that Putin is seeking to meddle in this year’s elections. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray-- all Trump appointees confirmed by the Republican-led Senate-- have also warned of foreign interference. We should heed these warnings and empower Mueller to see his important work through to its conclusion.

I have worried over the years about runaway legal authority, and I’ve battled against activist judges. I don’t worry about Robert Mueller. He is a lifelong Republican with a career of distinguished service running the Criminal Division of the Justice Department for President Ronald Reagan and serving as President George W. Bush’s FBI director, twice unanimously confirmed by the Senate. And his investigation is getting results: By any objective standard, he has moved swiftly, obtaining 23 indictments and five guilty pleas in just more than a year.

Congress must never abandon its role as an equal branch of government. In this moment, that means protecting Mueller’s investigation. We’re at our best as senators and Republicans when we defend our institutions. But more than that, it’s our best face as Americans.

People around the world admire not just the material well-being of the United States but our values, too. The rule of law is something many die trying to secure for their countries. We can’t afford to squander it at home.

When Frist retired in 2006, he spent a great deal of time and energy helping Bob Corker win his open seat. And it was a very close call. Without Frist's Corker might not have won, against wretched Blue Dog Harold Ford.

• Bob Corker- 929,911 (50.7%)
• Harold Ford, Jr.- 879,976 (48.0%)

Now Corker, having served 2 terms, is retiring, just as Frist had. He's made it obvious that he's no fan of Trump's, although, when it comes to voting, he rarely stands up to him, primarily because they see eye-to-eye on policy. There are 5 Republican senators who vote less frequently with Trump than Corker: Susan Collins (ME), John McCain (AZ), Jeff Flake (AZ), Mike Lee (UT) and Lisa Murkowski (AK). But Corker has little to fear from Trump now. Unless Trump can peel off a Democrat-- Corker has the leverage to extract something out of Trump by threatening toot against his SCOTUS nomination. Frist should talk with him about Mueller independence.

Chip Proser's recipe for Spaghetti Putinesca... do not try this at home

How Badly Will The Republican Tax Scam Hurt The GOP In The Midterms?

In Pennsylvania an ungerrymandered congressional map spelled doom and gloom for the GOP. That's why, at least in part, Charlie Dent, Ryan Costello, Bill Shuster and Pat Meehan all announced early retirements and why Brian Fitzpatrick, Rothfus and Mike Kelly still may (or wish they did). The PVIs of these districts changed significantly enough to drive these Republicans out of office. Costello's old district went from an R+2 to a D+2. Meehan's went from a R+1 to a D+13. Dent's went from an R+4 to a D+1. Fitzpatrick's went from R+2 to R+1. Scott Perry's went from an R+11 to an R+6. And Rothfus' went from an R+11 to an R+3.

Yesterday Muhlenberg College and Morning Call released a new poll of Pennsylvania voters that indicates as choppy seas for Republicans as Republican incumbents suspected. Trump's numbers are in the toilet; only 39% of respondents approve of the way he is doing his job. And only 12% approve off the way the Republican-controlled Congress it doing its job. At the top of the state's ticket-- Governor Tom Wolf and Senator Bob Casey are both way ahead of all their potential GOP opponents.

Asked "If the elections for Congress were being held today, which party's candidate would you vote for?" The Democrats led 47% to 38%. At a Lincoln Day Republican dinner last weekend, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker told the crowd that "The wind’s not at our back. It’s not at our side. It is firmly in our face. This election is going to be tougher than any one I have been involved with, including the recall... My number-one concern for almost a year has been complacency, not just of [GOP] voters but even of activists"

And, back in Pennsylvania, when the pollsters asked "Do you approve or disapprove of the tax reform law that was passed by Congress and signed by the President in December," only 39% approved and 46% disapproved. Those results very much fit with the results of a new national Gallup poll released this week. 39% approve of the Trump-GOP tax law and 52% disapproved.

More Americans realize the tax bill was a scam, "showering the wealthy with deficit-financed tax breaks, while leaving workers and the American middle class behind."

It makes sense that Americans continue to hold a negative view of the bill. For one, the overwhelming majority of the benefits are going to the already wealthy. In 2018, the richest 1 percent will see a tax break of more than $50,000, or almost $1,000 per week. The poorest 20 percent will see a mere $60 spread out over the course of the entire year, slightly more than $1 per week. Tax hikes will arrive for millions of Americans in the coming years, with some kicking in this year. For example, homeowners in Los Angeles will see a 30-year mortgage cost up to $76,000 more, thanks to new changes in the tax bill.

Republicans dismissed the concerns of critics, who warned their bill would primarily benefit corporations, not average Americans. As predicted, rich corporations are spending their Congressional kickbacks to enrich Wall Street through record-setting dividend payments and stock buybacks, not investing in workers.

According to USA Today, “it is the massive spending on dividends and share buybacks that critics pounce on, as this use of cash benefits the wealthy and company shareholders, rather than middle-class workers.” After all, the wealthiest 10 percent of households own an astounding 84 percent of all stocks owned by Americans, according to a New York University economist.

USA Today further reports that less than 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies gave bonuses to workers as a result of the tax bill. And the majority of workers say they have not seen any increase in their own paychecks. Speaker Paul Ryan once boasted about a secretary who will receive $1.50 extra per week. Six quarters is hardly the change Republicans promised.

Republicans claimed the bill would be a boon to small business. Instead, the unfair advantage given to wealthy corporations drew a quick rebuke from small business owners, who soured on a bill heaping even more advantages on the richest Americans, people who already have the most resources.

Claims that the deficit-financed boondoggle-- promoted as “rocket fuel” for the economy-- would lead to an abundance of new jobs and increasing wages for workers didn’t pan out either. The most recent jobs report from the Labor Department shows an economy performing largely as it did in years past. The economy continues to grow like it did under President Obama, except America is now saddled with more debt.

Thanks to a recent report, Americans now know 80 percent of gains from the tax bill are going offshore to foreign investors. In other words, the United States will borrow money to pay for an unpopular tax bill so that foreign investors can receive four out of every five dollars of economic gain. On top of that, there are provisions in the bill designed to incentivize corporations to outsource jobs and hide profits overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

The unpopularity of the tax bill isn’t only about its skewed rewards system. Massive changes to health care policy, which is leading to dramatic health care cost increases, is also an issue for the public.

In some parts of the country, health care premiums are estimated to increase by up to 94 percent in the next three years, mainly due to Republican-backed provisions in the tax bill. An estimated 13 million Americans will lose health insurance in the coming years.

And of course, the corporate kickbacks doled out are not free; Republicans in Congress decided to pay for the tax bill through a massive increase to the national deficit. It didn’t matter that Republicans like Ryan, who so loudly backed the bill, once called the nation’s debt and deficit the defining issue of the day. (“The facts are very, very clear,” he said in 2011, “the United States is headed towards a debt crisis.”)

Now, the Republicans’ tax scam is a major component in the nation’s additional $2.4 trillion deficit. The fiscal recklessness of the tax bill even threatens America’s credit rating.

The tax scam is so bad even Republicans struggle, and fail, when campaigning on its merits. In a recent Pennsylvania congressional special election, the bill was so unpopular Republicans stopped talking about it, pivoting instead to Trump-like race-baiting, anti-immigrant advertising. (In a district Trump won by 20 points, the Democratic challenger won.)

At the conservative WashingtonExaminer.com, right-wing reporter David Drucker wrote that "Trump is undermining voter support for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act with erratic messaging after it was gaining popularity, alarming Republicans counting on the law to save the party’s vulnerable House majority. Senior Republicans are declining to publicly finger Trump for the heralded tax overhaul’s sagging approval ratings. Views of the law steadily climbed during the first two months of the year on the strength of a unified push from the White House and Capitol Hill ahead of the midterm. Privately, Republicans complain that the president’s sudden shift to tariffs, with threats of trade wars, distracted from the positive impacts of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts and allowed Democrats to regain the upper hand. Concluding that Trump is unreliable, Republicans say it’s their responsibility to turn public opinion around."

In a fresh NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted jointly by Democratic and Republican pollsters, the law was underwater: 27 percent approved, 36 percent disapproved. Those results track with private data Republicans have monitored, sparking anxiety about their chances of surviving a tough November election with their House majority intact.

"Republicans have a lot of work in front of them to make sure people understand the benefits of the tax bill, and nobody is going to be driving this but them. They need to understand that it’s not just-- we’ve done this, let’s go on to the next thing,” said David Winston, a GOP pollster who advises House and Senate Republicans.

“The signature achievement for Congressional Republicans for this Congress will have been the tax bill-- no matter what else they do,” he added.

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who is retiring rather than continue working with Trump said he wouldn't campaign against the Democrat running for his seat in November. And yesterday he described the White House as being the center of "constant chaos," blasting Trump's spending bill as "grotesque, adding ominously, "This president, obviously, is not a president who’s interested in fiscal issues. Is this president a president who cares about the fiscal health of our nation? No. No." Voters-- even Republican voters-- aren't going to be happy about that.

Do The Two Political Parties Stand For Anything (Other Than Careerism)?

The rock-solid set of principles the Democratic Party once stood for has weakened... a lot. Thank Bill Clinton and his transactional politics for a lot of that. Choice doesn't matter, nor does marriage equality, unions, the legitimate aspirations of working families. The DCCC is out recruiting NRA allies. "But you need to adopt Republican-lite positions to win in that state (or district) is something I hear from faux Democrats on Twitter nearly every day. The Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the New Dems and Blue Dogs-- stand for nothing except careerism, their own careerism. And that is the ascendant wing. Recently in Jackson, Mississippi Bernie Sanders told a large and enthusiastic crowd that "the business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure. People sometimes don’t see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama. He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But behind that reality, over the last ten years, Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country." Even the Congressional Progressive Caucus, originally founded by Bernie, seems to be going along for the ride more often than many progressives feel comfortable with.

How many members of the Progressive Caucus are also members of the New Dems? Well... there's Don Beyer (VA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), André Carson (IN), Val Demings (FL), Ruben Kihuen (NV), Brenda Lawrence (MI), and Jared Polis (CO). And how many New Dems have the Progressive Caucus endorsed so far this cycle? Angie Craig (MN) and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL). And there are mixed stories about Florida conservative Darren Soto (FL), a New Dem and big NRA ally who doesn't appear on the CPC website but who was endorsed a few weeks ago. A few days ago, a candidate Blue America is still in the middle of vetting called me, excitedly, to tell me he has been endorsed by the Progressive Caucus. At one time that would have been a huge plus for Blue America. It doesn't mean much any more. This year it endorsed establishment insider Liz Watson over genuine progressive leader Dan Canon (IN-09). They endorsed Gina Ortiz Jones over genuine progressive leader Rick Treviño (TX-23). They endorsed hackish establishment shill Mike Levin over progressive Doug Applegate (TX-49), Steve Horsford over Amy Vilela (NV-04)...

The Democratic Party was once constantly pushed in a progressive direction by a strong, vibrant Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus is no longer strong, no longer vibrant, no longer capable of pushing the Democratic Party in any direction. They're becoming a subsidiary of the New Dems. Instead of offering an alternative to the corrupt centrist Joe Crowley as the next Speaker, I'm hearing they're going to actually back Crowley! You want to know why the Democratic Party doesn't stand for anything worthwhile any longer? Don't just blame the Blue Dogs, the New Dems, Pelosi, Hoyer... blame the Progressive Caucus... for transforming itself into a big nothing pie of complacent identity politics.

You know who's just as bad-- or even worse-- than the Democrats? The pathetic Republicans. John Harwood, writing for CNBC yesterday, took on the hollowness the GOP has already fallen into. "The business model of the modern Republican Party," he wrote, "does not produce real-world budget discipline. So today, GOP lawmakers turn to make-believe."

Within the last four months, the Republican president and party leaders in Congress took two actions that dramatically expand federal deficits. On a party-line vote, they cut taxes by $150 billion a year, then increased spending by $150 billion a year in cooperation with Democrats.

Now, as the Congressional Budget Office projects the return of $1 trillion annual deficits, congressional Republicans plan a gesture for constituents alarmed by rising debt. The House will vote on Thursday on a constitutional amendment requiring lawmakers to balance the federal budget.

The amendment lacks enough support to pass. Nor would GOP lawmakers want it to, since they have demonstrated unwillingness to make the policy choices the amendment would require.

In a second gesture, the White House is preparing to ask Congress to rescind some of the spending increases that Trump signed weeks ago. Bipartisan opposition from lawmakers who just affirmed them with their votes makes it unlikely such a proposal can pass.

Evidence suggests that gestures are the best the 21st century GOP can do. Decades of evolution have produced overlapping but disparate Republican segments whose priorities consistently drive deficits up.

Backers of supply-side economics dominate Republican tax policy. Urged on by GOP donors on Wall Street and in executive suites, they press continually to cut taxes.

Advocates of limited government welcome the resulting reduction of federal revenue. They want Washington to do less.

But proponents of strengthening America's military posture want more, so they pursue larger and larger Pentagon budgets. And older, working-class whites who disdain Wall Street and depend on government programs increasingly define the GOP voting base.

Specifically, those voters want to protect their benefits under Social Security and Medicare, both now ballooning as the massive baby boom generation retires. Conservative ideologues opposed those programs from their inception but have failed to roll them back.

No Republican faction openly disavows deficit reduction. But when President George W. Bush sought to fundamentally restructure Social Security in 2005, a Congress controlled by fellow Republicans declined.

In winning the presidency two years ago, Trump promised not to touch Social Security or Medicare benefits.

House Speaker Paul Ryan keeps exhorting his colleagues to curb them but hasn't succeeded, and on Wednesday, he announced his retirement.

The GOP has forced cuts to the narrow slice of the budget that finances other domestic spending, recently through the 2011 budget sequestration law. In practice, however, Ryan and other Republicans found those constraints too severe to sustain and acquiesced in Democratic attempts to relax them.

The central difference between the parties on budget discipline is that Democrats, while backing higher spending, have also backed higher taxes to finance it. Republicans keep supporting tax cuts even while failing to shrink spending.

The result: since Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, all three Republican presidents before Trump left office with higher federal deficits than they inherited. One Democratic president (Bill Clinton) departed with a budget surplus; the other (Barack Obama) saw the deficit decline by two-thirds as a share of the economy.

That record has not deterred Republican claims that their policies will eventually reduce red ink. Last fall, the Trump administration insisted its tax cut would stimulate enough economic activity to boost annual growth to 2.9 percent over the next 10 years.

"Not only will this plan pay for itself," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin predicted, "but it will pay down debt."

The CBO concluded this week that Mnuchin's forecast is a fantasy.

Its report projects annual economic growth of 1.9 percent over 10 years-- mirroring the long-run outlook from before the tax cut passed. It projects the deficit growing from $665 billion in Trump's first year in office to $1 trillion in his fourth.

It envisions the national debt rising by $1.5 trillion above previous projections to reach $27 trillion by 2027.

When he backed the tax cut, retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker cited his belief that it would not increase the budget deficit. After this week's CBO report, Corker fretted, "If it ends up costing what has been laid out here, it could well be one of the worst votes I've made."

Corker's House colleagues need not fear the same from their balanced-budget amendment vote Thursday. It won't change the deficit by even a single dollar.

And the trade agreements that have hollowed out the identification of blue collar workers with the Democratic Party? You want to blame Reagan and George H.W. Bush? George H.W. Bush couldn't pass NAFTA. Bill Clinton promised Wall Street and Big Business he would-- and he let Rahm Emanuel loose on Congress to accomplish it. That's when the Democratic Party turned into a big pile of stinking shit-- that and when Obama appointed Debbie Wasserman Schultz head of the DNC and allowed her to undercut the 2016 primaries to guarantee a win for Clinton's wife, a guarantee that brought America the Mafia presidency of Donald J. Trump.

The Last Decade Has Been One Big Self-Serving Merry Christmas For Crooked Bob Corker

We warned you all along not to count on rot-gut conservatives like Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) to stand up to Trump in any real way. Name calling is cheap; but when it comes to what really matters, they’re both full-fledged Trumpists. What I didn’t know is that Corker is really corrupt, more so then even your garden variety senator.

In the new Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi wrote that he “spent most of this past summer investigating Corker, whose personal finances have been an open scandal for years.” He offers the chart above showing that “Corker went from having an estimated net worth of zero [and burdened with debt] when he entered the Senate in 2007, to being (as of 2015) the fourth-wealthiest man in the Senate, worth $69 million. How,” asks Taibbi, “do you increase your net worth by 69 million dollars while you're working full-time as a Senator? That is not an easy story to explain.”

It wasn't until Corker took office and filled out disclosure forms that his finances became public— sort of. Few in the media seem ever to have read the "liabilities" section of Corker's first disclosure, where the former mayor and construction magnate listed a series of massive outstanding loans. At the low end, Corker appeared to owe a hair-raising $24.2 million. At the high end, $120.5 million.

He took office in debt to some of the nation's biggest lenders— including somewhere between $12 million and $60 million in debt to GE Capital alone.

Corker had been a construction magnate in Tennessee before taking office, a sort of mini-Trump. Before he ran for office, he sold off his business to a local developer named Henry Luken.

…Corker tested the limits of the profiteering possibilities in the legislative branch, essentially becoming a full-time day-trader who did a little Senator-ing in his spare time.

In the first nine months of 2007, Corker made an incredible 1,200 trades, over four per day, including 332 over a two-day period… By 2014, when Corker sat on the Senate Banking Committee, a position that gave him regular access to prime information about the future direction of the markets, the Tennessee Senator still had his foot on the gas. He made 930 stock trades that year.

…Corker's activities didn't go completely unnoticed. A few ethics groups cried foul over the years.

Anne Weismann, director of the Campaign for Accountability, which filed a complaint against Corker in 2015, described Corker's trading history in damning terms.

"Senator Corker's trades followed a consistent pattern," she said. "He bought low and sold high. It beggars belief to suggest these trades— netting the senator and his family millions— were mere coincidences."

One financial analyst I know said Corker's trading patterns looked more like the work of "an office of multiple analysts all grinding at least 60 hours a week" than like the work of "one guy moonlighting as a Senator."

When Corker took on Trump this fall— saying the White House was "an adult day care center" and that Trump's behavior threatened "World War III”— he suddenly became a darling of sorts in the liberal media.

Now he's a bad guy again, for reportedly doing what he's always done, acting in his own financial interest while earning a paycheck as a U.S. Senator.

The Corker story to me is a classic example of why it's always dangerous to overlook a politician's failings because he happens to be on the right side of some partisan debate at a given moment in time. The reason is obvious: these types eventually revert to form, and soon enough, a politician's flaws will be working against you again, rather than for you.

Tennessee Sleazebag $enator Bob Corker Sells His Vote And Sells Out His Country For Personal Gain

-by Noah

What is the price for integrity? Can you sell something you never had? Bob Corker isn't the first $enator, of any party, to sell his vote while selling out his constituents, and we know he won't be the last. But what Corker has just done is a glaring, prime example of how things get done in Washington, all too often to our detriment as individuals and as a country. Corker's action even has its own name: The Corker Kickback. It seems that Corker has not only put his party before his country but put himself first as well. A few weeks ago, Corker, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd said about the Trump/Ryan Tax Scam 2017 bill:

If it looks like we're adding one penny to the deficit, I'm not going to support it. It's the greatest threat to our nation.

Apparently, in Corker's villainous tiny pea brain, the price of the nation is the same as his price and threats to the nation mean nothing if he can profit from them by asking for a last minute self-enriching provision to be added to the final bill. He has switched his vote even though the tax scam adds $1.4 Trillion to our deficit. That's a lot of pennies. This time, not wanting to face anyone directly, he just quietly issued the following statement:

I've decided to support the tax reform package that we will vote on next week.

Senile $enator Orrin Hatch of Utah says it is he that wrote the controversial provision, a provision that gives large financial advantages to those who own real estate LLCs. It just so happens that Hatch gets a large bulk of his bribes, er, "campaign contributions" from the real estate industry. He also bogusly claims that the provision was always there, a claim that the International Business Times calls "factually false"; aka a bullshit lie. Imagine that!

By the time you read this post, the deed will probably have been done and the middle and working classes of this country will be getting a lump of coal from the republicans for Christmas. Not only that but the new tax scam gets rid of the Affordable Care Act's mandates, effectively terminating insurance for at least 13 million of our fellow citizens while raising premiums for the rest of us. If you find a tumorous lump, you can keep it. In fact, you can watch it grow as fast as the bank accounts of people like Bob Corker and the Republican Party's benefactors while you have no money for medical care.

So, one has to ask, what price did this lowlife Corker sell his vote for and sell out his constituents for? Was Corker promised a job as the new Secretary Of State when Rex Tillerson is gone? Is Corker planning on running for president if the country wakes up in time to the evil that is Trump or Trump simply ideally chokes to death on a bad fast food taco and Diet Coke combo on live TV by 2020? If that's what Corker is thinking, he will need to be in the good graces of the Republican Party and their donors who said they would cut the party off if they didn't pass the Tax Scam they wanted.

Or, did Corker just sell his vote for the aforementioned self-enriching real estate LLC provision, or were additional cash "provisions" waved in his face? A lap dance from a Capitol Hill hooker, perhaps? Can you just see him feverishly salivating in some meeting with Mitch McConnell and some slithering lobbyist as they waved hundred dollar bills in his face?

Corker was the last hold out Repug. He was the only republican to vote against the $enate version of the Tax Scam in the preliminary, pre-reconciliation vote. He denies knowing about the provision that amounts to personal tax breaks being slipped into the bill at the last minute. He even has the chutzpah to say he hasn't even read the bill. It's just a Christmas Miracle! But, think about what I just pointed out: Corker hasn't read the bill but he changed his yes vote to a no vote. Something got him to change his vote. Meanwhile, his explanation amounts to the Sgt. Shultz "I know nothing. I see nothing" approach; not unlike his boy Trumpanzee who says the same thing about collusion with Russia.

Corker is not alone in the Republican Party's banana republic style of law creation. Texas $enator John Cornyn got a nice midnight provision slipped in for people who invest in master limited partnerships in the oil and gas pipeline business. $enator Rafael "Ted" Cruz" is one of many $enators who will benefit from that. House Speaker Paul Ryan is one of the vermin who will benefit from the last minute real estate LLC provision. Oh, and what is Trump's main business? Shocking, eh? These and other provisions will mean multi, multi-millions in passive income and deductions for numerous $enators and Congre$$cretin$. Personally, I'd love to know what $enator Susan Collins of Maine got. After all, she was pissed after the pre-reconciliation vote when it dawned on her that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan had lied to her about a mechanism to cap the inevitability of rising local property taxes that will result because of this scam. What made her look the other way? And, as I mentioned in one of my meme posts the other night, $enator Marco Rubio of Florida sold himself for less than a Capitol Hill prostitute gets. It takes a lot to fail at being a whore, but, I will give Rubio credit. At least, he held out for something, an increase in the child tax credit, that, if only on paper, has the appearance of helping other people. Which is worse? Which is more cynical and evil? You decide. I'd throw them all into a vat of lye until nothing was left but their gold cufflinks and Rolexes.

One day, we may see the master list of what all of these scum got for selling us out so their $$$ gravy train will keep going. It won't do us any good by that point. Our only option will lie in the world of revenge.

They're Both Important But There's A Big Difference From Being Anti-Trump And Being Progressive

My congressman, Adam Schiff, was a conservative state legislator who got elected in 2000 because voters wanted revenge for the role the incumbent, James Rogan, played in the Clinton impeachment. Schiff entered Congress, joined the Blue Dogs and started voting like a Republican. After his district shredded some Republican neighborhoods and added some of the bluest areas of L.A. (Silverlake, West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Echo Park and the Hollywood Hills) he slipped out of the increasingly discredited Blue Dog caucus and joined the less well-known but equally odious New Dems. But Schiff saw an opportunity in Trump's unpopularity. He persuaded Pelosi to give him a high profile committee position that got him on national TV so he could make himself a credible spokesman against Trump. Most of the time, he does a decent enough job at it. But that doesn't make him any less conservative and it is a mistake for low-info voters-- most voters are pretty low-info-- to think Schiff is somehow "progressive." He isn't. He's a conservative New Dem who is doing his job in exposing Trump's connections to Russia. Thanks, Adam, we appreciate your service.

And you know what, there have been lots of corporate Democrats and Democrats who more often than not vote with Ryan and McCarthy on crucial issues who have been speaking out against the abnormal behavior of Trump. Excellent-- but, again, don't mix that up with being progressive. In fact, now we have increasing numbers of Republicans speaking out against Trump. But it would be crazy to assume being against Trump is going to make them anything different from what they've been: conservatives. Now they're just conservatives who, for whatever reason, oppose Trump. Tuesday morning Bob Corker (R-TN), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) captured the news cycle by denouncing Trump in no uncertain terms. BRAVO! Tuesday evening the 3 of them voted for a bill giving Wall Street an easy path to rip off consumers, just as Trump had asked them to.

Josh Hohmann, writing hopefully for the Washington Post yesterday, noted that Trump should be terrified now because Flake and Corker feel liberated to listen to their consciences and speak their minds. OK, I'll take it, but don't ever expect either to vote with the Democrats against any piece of Trump's agenda. It's hard enough to get more moderate Republicans, like Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, to do that more than once in a blue moon. In an op-ed for The Post Flake explains that he decided not to seek reelection in order “to remove all considerations of what is normally considered to be safe politically.”

“Here's the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I'm not willing to take, and that I can't in good conscience take,” Flake acknowledged in an interview with the Arizona Republic. “It would require me to believe in positions I don't hold on such issues as trade and immigration, and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone.”

-- As one of the most authentically conservative members of Congress, Flake has a level of moral authority rivaled by few others. He is the rightful ideological heir to Barry Goldwater, whose namesake institute Flake led before being elected to the House in 2000.

That authentically conservative mindset is never going to give Democrats anything they want policy-wise, so let's enjoy his animus towards Trump and Trump's deranged, dysfunctional reactions-- and hope the battle alerts more and more independent voters and even some Republican voters that there is something very, very abnormal going on. As Hohmann pointed out about Flake and Corker, "Both these guys will have as big a megaphone as they want for as long as they want it. They will be the most sought-after guests on the Sunday shows and in prime time cable for the next year... Some in the Washington chattering class are under the mistaken impression that-- because they will never face voters again-- Flake, Corker and McCain are not being that courageous by going public with their fears about Trump."

Before we look at Flake's OpEd, let's consider Jeff Hauser's piece at Rewire urging readers not to confuse words with how he sees Resistance. Hauser-- like many progressives-- thinks the only way to resist Trump is to vote against him agenda. That would be nice... but unrealistic. I hope every teacher in the country asks their students to read or listen to Flake's speech and write an essay about it. It's that important. His voting record won't change. Hauser's point is that "while both senators have now spoken out against Trump’s behavior in no uncertain terms, neither has taken a single notable concrete action to curtail Trump’s power or fight back against his corruption. Unlike some fellow Republican Senators, neither Flake nor Corker have acted to attempt to shield Robert Mueller’s investigation from potential presidential meddling... [T]here is little reason to think a future Flake or Corker speech will recount any acts of actual oversight of the Trump administration. It is crushingly depressing that we are debating Trump’s tax cut plan without Trump having fulfilled his promise to release his tax returns. What are Corker and Flake doing to force Trump’s tax returns to become public? Nothing, though Congress has options to do so forcibly. Likewise, Flake and Corker ought to support efforts to address what seems to be Trump’s attempts to get around the advice and consent obligations within the U.S. Constitution. Should a so-called defender of America’s greatness be upset that the acting comptroller of the currency may hold his job illegally? Or that other corporate cronies are exercising questionable-at-best authority at the EPA and elsewhere across the administration?... [U]nless and until Flake and Corker take anti-corruption actions consistent with their ideology and stated idealism, we should be wholly cynical about their 'sacrifice.' Reward actions, not speeches."

All that duly noted, Flake called his Post OpEd Enough. He starts off my comparing the Trump presidency to the unravelling of McCarthyism. He imagines himself in the Joseph Welch role: "You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" He wrote that "the moral power of Welch’s words ended McCarthy’s rampage on American values, and effectively his career as well." Trump, though has no sense of decency and neither do many (most?) of the voters who elected him. So why does Flake think the two period are analogous?

There is a sickness in our system-- and it is contagious.

How many more disgraceful public feuds with Gold Star families can we witness in silence before we ourselves are disgraced?

How many more times will we see moral ambiguity in the face of shocking bigotry and shrug it off?

How many more childish insults do we need to see hurled at a hostile foreign power before we acknowledge the senseless danger of it?

How much more damage to our democracy and to the institutions of American liberty do we need to witness in silence before we count ourselves as complicit in that damage?

Nine months of this administration is enough for us to stop pretending that this is somehow normal, and that we are on the verge of some sort of pivot to governing, to stability. Nine months is more than enough for us to say, loudly and clearly: Enough.

The outcome of this is in our hands. We can no longer remain silent, merely observing this train wreck, passively, as if waiting for someone else to do something. The longer we wait, the greater the damage, the harsher the judgment of history.

I have been so worried about the state of our disunion that I recently wrote a book called Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle. I meant for the book to be a defense of principle at a time when principle is in a state of collapse. In it, I traced the transformation of my party from a party of ideas to a party in thrall to a charismatic figure peddling empty populist slogans. I tried to make the case for the sometimes excruciating work of arguing and compromise.

This was part of the reason I wanted to go to the Senate-- because its institutional strictures require you to cross the aisle and do what is best for the country. Because what is best for the country is for neither party’s base to fully get what it wants but rather for the factions that make up our parties to be compelled to talk until we have a policy solution to our problems. To listen to the rhetoric of the extremes of both parties, one could be forgiven for believing that we are each other’s enemies, that we are at war with ourselves.

But more is now required of us than to put down our thoughts in writing. As our political culture seems every day to plumb new depths of indecency, we must stand up and speak out. Especially those of us who hold elective office.

To that end, and to remove all considerations of what is normally considered to be safe politically, I have decided that my time in the Senate will end when my term ends in early January 2019. For the next 14 months, relieved of the strictures of politics, I will be guided only by the dictates of conscience.

If Trump Keeps Up Like This, Would HE Be Able To Be Elected Dogcatcher In Tennessee?

Last year, Trump beat Hillary 60.7% to 34.7% in Tennessee, a very solid win. Hillary won just 3 counties of the state's 95. She won Shelby Co., the state's most populous by a wide margin-- 206,640 (62.3%) to 114,948 (34.6%) and nearby Haywood Co.-- 3,704 (54.3%) to 3,020 (44.2%). Hillary also kicked Trump's ass in Tennessee's second most populous county, Davidson, which includes Nashville. She won 148,473 (60.3%) to 84,365 (34.3%).

In 2012, when Bob Corker was up to reelection, he did about 5 points better than Trump wound up doing, winning 64.9% of the vote. That's because he won Davidson Co, where Trump failed so miserably. The only counties Corker lost were Shelby and Haywood. So this morning when Trump went into a twitter rage against Corker, claiming, among the other nonsense that Corker "couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee," it was just so much hot air. Trump was preparing for his lunch with Republican senators, many of whom hate his guts and, according to one chief of staff to a big-time Republican senator, is much more disliked by Republicans in the Senate than Obama ever was.

Keep in mind that Todd Womack, Corker's chief of staff went on the record to say that Trump flat out lied about Corker asking, let alone begging, for Trump's endorsement. "Trump," he told the media, "called Senator Corker and asked him to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection and said I would have endorsed you." That was on October 8. Trump is-- as he always does-- sticking with his lie.

And Corker is sticking to the truth: "The debasement of our nation is what he will be remembered most for." Corker now uses the Twitter hashtag #AlertTheDaycareStaff." Not that Señor Trumpanzee was unprovoked. His Adderall-fueled tweet storm "followed a string of appearances by Corker (R-TN) on the three major broadcast morning news shows during which he needled the president. On NBC’s Today, Corker called on the White House to 'step aside' on tax reform and allow Congress to take the lead in crafting the legislation. Trump’s scheduled lunch with Republican senators on Tuesday is little more than a 'photo op,' Corker said, as the push for tax reform gets underway.

Trumpanzee pokes the snapping Turtle

On Good Morning America Corker said "I don't make comments I haven’t thought about," making it clear he's sticking with his remarks disparaging the dysfunctional nutcase in the White House. And on CNN Corker added that Trump has "proven himself unable to rise to the occasion. ... He’s obviously not going to rise to the occasion." The GOP caucus is, of course, worried that Trump will push Corker so far that he'll torpedo the GOP tax cut for millionaires plan, the only thing they all care about-- and what holds many of them back from denouncing and breaking with Trump.

Nancy Ohanian on Trump's first 9 months in the White House

The Republican Party's 2018 Albatross: Donald J. Trump

Like Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) is retiring from Congress. Easy enough for them to warn the country about the unmitigated disaster unfolding in real time in the Oval Office. Republicans running in 2018 are too scared to. Dent spoke with Katie Tur on MSNBC Monday: "We’ve had a lot of these 'the emperor has no clothes' moments and I’m glad that Sen. Corker has brought voice to this. We are concerned. My colleagues, my Republican colleagues in the House, I know, and Senate, are concerned by much of the dysfunction and disorder and chaos at the White House... We have these conversations all the time and we have to do better and I think more of my colleagues should speak up. They say things privately, they don’t say publicly. I said it publicly before I announced I wasn’t running."

Tuesday morning Greg Sargent pointed out that Corker's critique "opens the door to a whole new round of press scrutiny of the GOP’s ongoing enabling of Trump. Corker confirmed that most Senate Republicans view Trump as, well, dangerous and crazy" in his NY Times interview that sent Trump into orbit yesterday.

Corker declined to answer when asked if he believes Trump is unfit for the presidency. But the only reasonable way to read all these comments is as a declaration that Trump is indeed unfit-- and that most Republicans know it. After all, Corker had previously said that Trump’s inner circle is helping to “separate our country from chaos.” Now he has added that Trump needs to be restrained by his inner circle from devolving into conduct that could end up unleashing untold global destruction-- and that most Republicans know it.

Corker is getting a lot of press plaudits for his unvarnished appraisal. But as James Fallows writes, there is a good deal that Corker can actually do right now if he wants to mitigate the threat that he himself says Trump poses. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has a range of powers that could help constrain Trump, including the power to hold public hearings to draw public attention to the ways in which Trump’s temperament threatens untold damage. At a minimum, Corker can be asked whether he intends to do these things, and if not, why not.

But whatever Corker says and does now, his new comments should precipitate a fundamental change in the way the press treats the ongoing GOP enabling of Trump. Corker has forced out into the open the fact that Republicans recognize the sheer abnormality and danger to the country of the situation we’re in, which opens the door for much tougher media questioning of them about their awareness of-- and acquiescence to-- this state of affairs.

This can start with a simple query: Do Republicans agree with Corker that Trump regularly needs to be constrained by his top advisers from engaging in conduct that threatens severe damage to the country and the world? If so, what are Republicans prepared to do about it?

In August, Jane Chong and Benjamin Wittes offered a useful set of guidelines for thinking about Trump’s misconduct. They divided it into three categories. First, there are his “abuses of power,” such as the nonstop self-dealing, the pardoning of former sheriff Joe Arpaio, and the firing of his FBI director. Second, there are his “failures of moral leadership,” which constitute a general degradation of his office via, among other things, his unprecedented, serial lying and efforts to destroy the institutional legitimacy of the free press. To this second category we can add Trump’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the Charlottesville white supremacists and the White House’s use of taxpayer funds to stage a weekend stunt in which Vice President Pence walked out of a football game, which are both part of a broader effort to continue stoking divisions.

Third, there is the “abandonment of the basic duties of his office,” which includes the failure to make appointments and (I would add) the deep rot of bad faith that has infested the White House’s approach to policy: He indicated he’d sign anything at all that would let him boast of destroying Barack Obama’s signature accomplishment. I would suggest a fourth category of misconduct: Trump’s sheer megalomaniacal indifference to the fundamental notion that his office confers on him any obligation to the public of any kind. This overlaps with the conduct discussed above and also includes the refusal to release his tax returns and his ongoing sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, which could harm millions.

As Chong and Wittes note, what’s challenging is to determine what sort of level of degradation of our institutions, political system and norms of political conduct all of this misconduct adds up to when taken together. We do know that congressional Republicans continue to enable many of these strands in isolation, and they continue to airbrush away the significance of misconduct that is glaring enough to require their condemnation, usually by making some variation of the claim that Trump is learning on the job. But Corker has now asserted that Republicans know Trump’s presidency constitutes an ongoing, abnormal, multifaceted danger to the country. This should intensify media scrutiny of this series of dodges, evasions and enabling exercises, and make it harder for Republicans to get away with them.

Meanwhile, at the same time, The Post's fact-checker squad pointed out that Señor Trumpanzee has made 1,318 false or misleading claims in the last 263 days. The man is a congenital liar and it's almost impossible to keep up with all the lies, big and small. That's why the Washington Post has a whole team working on it. "When you track Trump’s claims so closely," they wrote, "it can often feel like deja vu. Trump has a tendency to repeat himself, and that includes his false or misleading claims... With almost exactly 100 days left to go in our year-long project, Trump is inching ever closer to breaking 2,000 claims."

Very much related was the poll Morning Consult released yesterday showing Trump's approval rating decreasing in every single state. He's even losing ground in Wyoming (down 3 points), Kentucky (down 6 points), Oklahoma (down 5 points), Montana (down 7 points), Arkansas (down 5 points), Kansas (down 6 points), Mississippi (down 6 points). And in states where voters already hate him he fell even more. He's down 10 points in Vermont, down 11 points in Connecticut and Delaware, down 12 points in his native New York. On top of that, right before the crucial Virginia general election, his approval is down over 6 points. Worse yet, his disapprove ratings in Virginia have gone from 40.6% to 52.9% since he took office.

And in the crucial battleground states for the 2018 midterms-- Trump is shaping up to be an anchor for Republican candidates, down. Take a district like OK-05 (Oklahoma City), already the least Trump friendly district in very red Oklahoma-- the only race where he won less than 60% of the vote. (He beat Hillary there last year 53.2% to 39.8%.) When he took office his statewide disapprove was an innocuous 27.20%. Since then it's climbed over 10 points to 38.9%. That's statewide. Imagine what it must be in Oklahoma City. In fact, on primary day Trump came in third in Oklahoma County with just 22,117 votes (25%) while Rubio and Cruz both bested him. But you know who else bested him on that day in that county? Bernie won 32,368 votes, more than Trump, more than Cruz and more than Rubio. The OK-05 Dems are running a dedicated Berniecrat next year, Tom Guild.

His net approval in Iowa is minus 11%. In Minnesota it's minus 17%, Wisconsin's is minus 12%, minus 15% in Michigan, minus 21% in Illinois, minus 6% in Pennsylvania... all states with key, key House and/or Senate races next year. A minus 19% net approval isn't going to help Leonard Lance or Rodney Frelinghuysen or Christopher Smith in New Jersey and a minus 22 net approval certainly wont do any good for Trump rubber-stamps like Mimi Walters, Darrell Issa, Devin Nunes, Ed Royce, Dana Rohrabacher, Duncan Hunter, Jeff Denham, Steve Knight and David Valadao in California.

Trump has failed to improve his standing among the public anywhere-- including the states he won handily as the Republican nominee during the 2016 presidential election, according to the survey, which was based on interviews of 472,032 registered voters across each state and Washington, D.C., from Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration to Sept. 26.

The negative swings in net approval ranged from as high as 30 percentage points in solidly blue Illinois and New York to as low as 11 points in red Louisiana. But in many of the states Trump easily carried last year-- such as Tennessee (-23 points), Mississippi (-21 percentage points), Kentucky (-20 points), Kansas (-19 points) and Indiana (-17 points)-- voters have soured on the president in 2017.

...Perhaps more concerning for Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of the 2018 midterms-- which typically serve as referendums on the presidency-- is a growing enthusiasm gap among GOP voters and dissenting partisans.

From January to September, the share of Republicans who strongly approve of Trump declined by 10 points, from 53 percent to 43 percent. Meanwhile, the intensity of disapproval among Democrats and independents has risen. Seventy-one percent of Democrats said they strongly disapproved of Trump in September, up 16 points from January, and among independents, there was an 11-point bump in strong disapproval, from 26 percent to 37 percent.

Those figures may encourage the Democratic Party, which is hoping to harness that energy-- and a lack thereof for Washington’s ruling party-- to ride a wave similar to the one that gave Republicans control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

Nonpartisan political handicapper and former Roll Call columnist Stuart Rothenberg said in a Sept. 25 interview that while the growing enthusiasm gap doesn’t guarantee a wave election, “the potential drop-off in Republican turnout, along with independents behaving like Democrats in the midterm elections, create a significant risk.”

...The more immediate problem for Trump, according to Rothenberg, is that his declining numbers will reduce his influence with Republicans on Capitol Hill, whom he’ll need to help secure legislative victories.

“He wants to have clout, and to the extent that he is deemed to be a drag-- an albatross-- on Republicans running around the country, it just lessens his influence on the Hill,” he said.

Senate Republicans Are Now Looking For Revenge-- Against Their Own President

Charlie Sykes: Trump is "an erratic narcissist, a serial liar"

Yesterday I mentioned how a top Senate staffer-- not someone connected with Bob Corker, by the way-- told me, on condition of anonymity-- that most Senate Republicans hate TRump more than they ever hated Obama. A Senate Democrat told me that Trump's outbursts against McCain, McConnell, Flake, Heller, Corker and the Senate itself has poisoned the atmosphere between Senate Republicans and the White House and that it's common knowledge that the Republican senators are "waiting for their opportunity to fuck him." Writing for the NY Times, Jonathan Martin and Mark Lander reported that Corker says "Trump was treating his office like 'a reality show,' with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation 'on the path to World War III'."

In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”

Mr. Corker’s comments capped a remarkable day of sulfurous insults between the president and the Tennessee senator-- a powerful, if lame-duck, lawmaker, whose support will be critical to the president on tax reform and the fate of the Iran nuclear deal.

Putin turned the White House into an Adult Day Care center

I called my old friend who works for a GOP senator, the guy who told me the Senate Republicans like Obama more than Trump, and he told me in a long conversation that many on Capitol Hill are convinced Trump didn't understand that Corker would be in the Senate, voting and influencing people, until January 2019, when he launched his gratuitous and drug-fueled twitter rampage against him. "T-Tex has it right," he told me. "I hate to say to a Commie like you, but Trump is a fucking moron... He's destroying this party and blowing our opportunity to pass our agenda for a generation." He agrees with Corker that Trump is "a political novice who has failed to make the transition from show business."

Trump poses such an acute risk, the senator said, that a coterie of senior administration officials must protect him from his own instincts. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him,” Mr. Corker said in a telephone interview.

The deeply personal back-and-forth will almost certainly rupture what had been a friendship with a fellow real estate developer turned elected official, one of the few genuine relationships Mr. Trump had developed on Capitol Hill. Still, even as he leveled his stinging accusations, Mr. Corker repeatedly said on Sunday that he liked Mr. Trump, until now an occasional golf partner, and wished him “no harm.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Corker’s remarks.

Mr. Trump’s feud with Mr. Corker is particularly perilous given that the president has little margin for error as he tries to pass a landmark overhaul of the tax code-- his best, and perhaps last, hope of producing a major legislative achievement this year.

If Senate Democrats end up unified in opposition to the promised tax bill, Mr. Trump could lose the support of only two of the Senate’s 52 Republicans to pass it. That is the same challenging math that Mr. Trump and Senate Republican leaders faced in their failed effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Corker could also play a key role if Mr. Trump follows through on his threat to “decertify” the Iran nuclear deal, kicking to Congress the issue of whether to restore sanctions on Tehran and effectively scuttle the pact.

Republicans could hold off on sanctions but use the threat of them to force Iran back to the negotiating table — a strategy being advocated by Senator Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican. But that approach could leave the United States isolated, and it will be up to Mr. Corker to balance opposition to the deal with the wishes of those, including some of Mr. Trump’s own aides, who want to change the accord but not blow it up.

Beyond the Iran deal, Mr. Corker’s committee holds confirmation hearings on Mr. Trump’s ambassadorial appointments. If the president were to oust Rex W. Tillerson as secretary of state, as some expect, Mr. Corker would lead the hearings on Mr. Trump’s nominee for the post.

In a 25-minute conversation, Mr. Corker, speaking carefully and purposefully, seemed to almost find cathartic satisfaction by portraying Mr. Trump in terms that most senior Republicans use only in private.

The senator, who is close to Mr. Tillerson, invoked comments that the president made on Twitter last weekend in which he appeared to undercut Mr. Tillerson’s negotiations with North Korea.

“A lot of people think that there is some kind of ‘good cop, bad cop’ act underway, but that’s just not true,” Mr. Corker said.

Without offering specifics, he said Mr. Trump had repeatedly undermined diplomacy with his Twitter fingers. “I know he has hurt, in several instances, he’s hurt us as it relates to negotiations that were underway by tweeting things out,” Mr. Corker said.

All but inviting his colleagues to join him in speaking out about the president, Mr. Corker said his concerns about Mr. Trump were shared by nearly every Senate Republican.

“Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” he said, adding that “of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”

As for the tweets that set off the feud on Sunday morning, Mr. Corker expressed a measure of powerlessness.

“I don’t know why the president tweets out things that are not true,” he said. “You know he does it, everyone knows he does it, but he does.”

Recent polling has shown that an increasing majority of voters feel that Trump is dishonest and most Americans believe almost any other source-- newspapers, TV news, ESPN, late night comedy hosts-- over him. The latest poll from PPP bodes poorly for any Republicans counting on Trump's coattails:

Mr. Corker would not directly answer when asked whether he thought Mr. Trump was fit for the presidency. But he did say that the commander in chief was not fully aware of the power of his office.

“I don’t think he appreciates that when the president of the United States speaks and says the things that he does, the impact that it has around the world, especially in the region that he’s addressing,” he said. “And so, yeah, it’s concerning to me.”

And yesterday, a new poll for Reuters by Ipsos shows that even in rural areas where Trump's support has been strong, his popularity has been slipping percipitously. "Trump... has been losing his grip on rural America. According to the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll, the Republican president’s popularity is eroding in small towns and rural communities where 15 percent of the country’s population lives... In September, 47 percent of people in non-metro areas approved of Trump while 47 percent disapproved. That is down from Trump’s first four weeks in office, when 55 percent said they approved of the president while 39 percent disapproved. The poll found that Trump has lost support in rural areas among men, whites and people who never went to college. He lost support with rural Republicans and rural voters who supported him on Election Day."

Over the weekend, The Intercept published a warning that the worst in yet to come in regard to Trump's mental instability. In an introduction to interview with Yale Professor Bandy Lee, author of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, they challenge their readers to ask Republicans if Trump is "psychologically unstable and unfit for office [and if he has] a dangerous mental illness of some shape or form?"

During the GOP primaries, Marco Rubio suggested he was a “lunatic,” Rand Paul dubbed him a “delusional narcissist,” and Ted Cruz denounced him as “utterly amoral” and “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.” Mitt Romney opined, “His is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader,” and Jeb Bush declared, “He needs therapy.”

In recent months, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) has admitted she is “worried” about the president’s mental health, and Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) has warned that Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence” necessary for a successful presidency.

Ask the ghostwriter of his best-selling book, The Art of the Deal.

Tony Schwartz has called Trump a “sociopath” and has said “there is an excellent possibility” that the Trump presidency “will lead to the end of civilization.”

Ask the voters.

One in three Americans say they believe Trump’s mental health is “poor” while two out of three regularly question his temperament. Four in ten voters in the swing state of Michigan-- which helped deliver the White House to Trump-- say they think the president is “mentally unstable” while a majority of them are worried that he has access to the nuclear codes.

Lee has concluded not just that Trump is insane but that he is dangerously insane. When the interviewer asks her "how worried should we be that Trump has access to the nuclear codes," her response is chilling: "Well, that is our critical concern: that his condition is actually probably far worse than people are detecting now; that [his] mental impairment goes deeper and is far more pervasive than people can understand when they are untrained in psychological matters. And that the worst is yet to come."