Trump Is Mentally Unbalanced-- Where Are His Doctors When He And The Country Desperately Need Them?

 

Before moving to L.A., I had lived in New York, Amsterdam and San Francisco. In L.A. I discovered something unique to this city. People ask you to invest in their films. It's insane because "invest" is the wrong word. It means you give them money for the film and then you write it off as a tax loss. I avoided that ugly world for the whole time I lived here. Then I got cancer. The doctor takes care of fighting the cancer. The patient takes care of fighting the side-effects. One of the side effects, it turns out, is that you become extremely impaired in every day, including mentally. Some unscrupulous hustler/movie producer figured out I was suffering from the side effects and tricked me-- easy in my state of mind-- into investing a very large sum of money in his absurd film, Cold Moon. I'm listed as a producer. Needless to say, I lost all the money. Lesson: Don't make important decisions when you're on strong drugs.

Guess who's on very, very strong drugs after his treatment in the hospital for COVID? Hint: Donald Jr, Thinks Sr. is acting insane. Gabe Sherman on Monday: "Trump's erratic and reckless behavior in the last 24 hours has opened a rift in the Trump family over how to rein in the out-of-control president, according to two Republicans briefed on the family conversations. Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. 'Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,' one of the sources told me. The stunt outraged medical experts, including an attending physician at Walter Reed. According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner to convince the president that he needs to stop acting unstable. 'Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,' a source said. Don Jr. is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. 'Don said, I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,' the source added. One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. 'They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,' a source close to the family told me. The Trump family’s private concern about Trump’s behavior could raise questions about his fitness for office. Trump has been prescribed drugs that medical experts say can seriously impair his cognitive function. Last night the New York Times reported that steroids, which Trump is reportedly taking, specifically dexamethasone, are known to 'affect mood, causing euphoria or a general happiness.'"

Uh... yeah... to put it mildly. The state Trump is in now is what the 25th Amendment was passed for. And the insane tweeting has only accelerated. Yesterday Michelle Goldberg tweeted that Señor Trumpanzee's "Twitter feed is always nuts but right now it really seems like he’s suffering some sort of psychological implosion." Well, yes, he clearly is. Earlier, Wisconsin Republican icon Charlie Sykes tweeted "Trump’s Twitter feed is extra-deranged tonight." That super-derangement spilled over into the next day, when the whole country-- world-- could watch Trump falling apart mentally and emotionally. He should be aware from electronics and in the care of physicians-- and I have nothing against osteopaths at all.

What if he decides to order the U.S. military to attack someone? Who's going to stand up to him? Certainly not Republicans! When he ordered them to break off negotiations with Democrats on the desperate needed pandemic relief package that he has held up, McConnell and McCarthy both said, "Yes, Your Highness," screwing over the country-- and their own constituents. "Trump pulled the plug on ongoing bipartisan coronavirus relief talks in an abrupt move that jolted Wall Street and surprised lawmakers of both parties," reported the Wall Street Journal but hours later called on Congress to approve a bill providing another direct check to many Americans." Hours later he was tweeting that Congress must pass the package IMMEDIATELY. The Washington Post: "First, he says he won’t pursue a package until after election. Then he demands Congress immediately pass bills." No one knows what to make of his erratic behavior-- other than scholars of King George III and fans of Hamilton.

And... Judd Legum who's Wednesday morning newsletter was devoted to a close look into Trump's Drugs. He wasn't treated by a quack he's been pushing, Stella Emmanuel, and he didn't take hydroxychloroquine, Legum wrote about what he did take:

• Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a promising experimental drug that has been made available to fewer than ten people outside of clinical trials.
• Remdesivir, a drug administered by IV that was found to shorten hospital stays for patients with serious cases of COVID-19.
• Dexamethasone, a steroid that was found to increase survival for patients with severe cases of COVID-19 and require supplemental oxygen.

Legum pointed out that "hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 [and that] Trump foisted an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment on the American public for months. But when his own health was on the line, Trump unwilling to follow his own advice." (No one know if he drank any bleach or shoved a UV light up his ass, though.)

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, hydroxychloroquine boosters are disappointed that Trump has abandoned the drug. Dr. Emmanuel, the conspiracy theorist that Trump promoted in May, said whoever convinced Trump to stop taking hydroxychloroquine should be "punched in the face."

She offered to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to White House staffers.

Steve Jalsevac, a hydroxychloroquine fan who co-founded the far-right website LifeSite News, urged readers to "contact the White House to ask why the president and Melania are not immediately being given this well-proven-in-practice medication protocol for COVID infection.”

Others, like former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka, were in denial. "I’m sure he’s taking his hydroxy this morning just like I did this morning," Gorka said. 

Most people who have heard of Mona Charen, I suspect, know her as an outspoken, partisan and very conservative Republican. She's written 3 books and you can figure out from the titles, who she is: Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003), Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us) (2005) and Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (2018). She worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House and for Jack Kemp. I gather she's not supporting the fascist candidate next month but the institutional conservative: Joe Biden. About a month ago she wrote The Coming Biden Landslide for the #NeverTrump site, The Bulwark. In her mind, Biden is the Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, and Trump is 2020's Jimmy Carter, detested by Republicans to this day.

Yesterday another Bulwarker, #NeverTrump Republican Tim Miller, wrote that when he looks at Trump’s "Twitter-centric negotiation over the possibility of a second COVID-19 stimulus package in the past 24 hours, I just gotta say, I think he might be fouling this up. He is the Great Negotiator. He 'wrote' a whole book on the subject, you may have heard of it. And here I am, a liberal arts major. A person who did not not go to Wharton Business School while pretending that I did... But speaking as a novice, this stimulus negotiation looks like an epic self-own on par with bankrupting a casino or selling steaks in a home electronics store. For those who aren’t juiced up on steroids or slamming dexamethasone, it might be hard to keep up...

For the last few months, Democrats and Republicans have been-- slowly, distractedly-- fighting over the details of a supplemental COVID stimulus package that would address the severe economic hardships brought upon many families and businesses by the pandemic. On Tuesday, the president, who had been largely absent from these discussions previously, crashed through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man in an attempt to demonstrate his mediation prowess.

First, around 2:30 p.m., he executed one of his patented gambits straight out of Art of the Deal:

The “economic populist” timed this power move on the heels of a conversation with Austerity-for-Thee Cocaine Mitch, blindsiding his own advisers (element of surprise!) in a series of tweets announcing that he will end negotiations on the stimulus package until after the election. As part of the tweetstorm, he also kindly ensured that people are aware that Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass a munificent $2.4 trillion in aid for people still struggling through a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Here-- within half an hour after his tweeting began-- is how the stock market responded to his announcement:

So, as an opening bid, it left a little bit to be desired, I would say. Jonathan Chait, another non-businessman mind you, called it “the worst political blunder in history.” A tad dramatic maybe, but not a great sign.

Regardless, it seemed like the dire reaction in the markets left Trump in a bad negotiating position vis-à-vis Speaker Pelosi-- and she agreed, firing off a single tweet about how the president’s ploy exposed his heartlessness.

This sense was confirmed five hours later when the president took a new/old tack, recanting his earlier contention that Pelosi’s offer was overly generous and adding a dollop of his trademark schoolyard misogyny:

With balance restored to the negotiating table, you might think he would wait to see how Pelosi would respond.

Not this president.

No he needed to further demonstrate his position as the alpha.

So in between IVs, presumably during commercial breaks from the shows, possibly wearing his preferred nightgown, he began to unleash a torrent of tweets negotiating against himself like a person suffering from a bout of psychosis due to a corticosteroid therapy.

First he did a complete 180 on his earlier position that Congress should pass no stimulus legislation, retweeting a news story about the Federal Reserve chair that implied Congress should spend even more!

Then he retweeted the esteemed Paul Sperry of Investor’s Business Daily-- not once, not twice, but twenty-two separate times-- on matters ranging from #Obamagate to the “disgraceful” moderator of the debate that Trump totally won to a not-all-that-veiled attack on Joe Biden for being concerned about health care when his wife and child died in a tragic car accident.

Trump followed that up with eight retweets of Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett, calling for the jailing of his former opponent Hillary Clinton and disparaging Speaker Pelosi’s looks.

He then tweeted a meme depicting the late Chris Farley—in character as the thrice-divorced homeless motivational speaker Matt Foley from the classic SNL sketch-- berating Attorney General Bill Barr for not arresting enough political opponents.

It’s unclear to me if any of these missives were part of the gamesmanship of the ongoing negotiations but I wanted to make sure that everyone had a clear picture of the state of play.

Around 10 p.m., on day five (we think) of the experimental drug regimen he is taking for combating the coronavirus, the president then launched back into the stimulus negotiations that at this stage are taking place only between himself and his earlier tweets.

No longer wanting to walk away completely, the president demanded that Congress pass two pieces of standalone legislation, the first bailing out the airline industry, the second sending a round of $1,200 stimulus checks out to our “great people.”
In the final tweet at the time of writing, he tagged Nancy Pelosi-- whose visage he had insulted hours earlier and who has been silent as he dickered for hours-- presumably in an attempt to reopen the line of communication with his counterparty.

Whew.

Given that I have never been “in a boardroom” for a high-stakes parley like this and that I cannot take the full measure of Donald Trump since he spent the day hiding from the cameras as the novel coronavirus infection consumed him, I can only turn to a celebrity negotiator for his expert analysis on what transpired:

"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead."
—Donald J. Trump.

Hard to argue with that.

Sharper Republicans Realize What's Headed Their Way-- And They Are Begging Us To Help Save Them.

A NY Fed study shows what anyone with any sense has long known, namely that Trump was full of shit last year when he claimed China would be paying for his trade war tariffs by cutting the prices on Chinese goods to absorb import taxes (as much as 25%) when the goods hit U.S. shores. That isn't the way trade wars go and "the prices Chinese firms charge have barely budged, meaning U.S. companies and consumers are paying the tariff costs, estimated at around $40 billion annually. As a result of the U.S.-China trade war, the government adds as much as 25% to the import price as Chinese goods enter the country. If Chinese companies were absorbing that cost, they would have to cut their prices as much as 20%-- a level that would allow U.S. retailers, manufacturers, or wholesalers to keep their own prices and profits stable. That is not what is happening. Import data from June 2018 to September 2019 shows Chinese import prices fell only 2%, the Fed study found, in line with price declines seen in many other nations as global trade slowed."

As with everything-- yes, every little thing-- Trump says, that was a lie. Yesterday, for example, CNN reported that Mulvaney's "Office of Management and Budget's first official action to withhold $250 million in Pentagon aid to Ukraine came on the evening of July 25, the same day President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone.

Tim Miller, writing for The Bulwark Tuesday, wanted to make sure his readers are aware that Trump’s Turkey Corruption Is Way Worse Than You Realize. Remember-- John Bolton said that he believes there's a "personal or business relationship dictating Trump’s position on Turkey"-- meaning that, at the very least, Trump's hand-picked national security advisor believes "the commander-in-chief made life or death national security decisions because of an active conflict of interest related to his business." That seems heavy, even for a (literate) Trump supporter, and Miller asserts it "would amount to the biggest scandal in the American presidency in half a century: The most senior security staffer, a man with unparalleled access to the president, believes that Trump acted in a way that is indistinguishable from double-dealing despots the world over."

One more Bulwark post, this one from yesterday by Laura Field on how the alt-right fringe because the mainstream of the GOP: Dear Republicans: Welcome to the New Establishment. "The Trumpists," she wrote, "became the GOP establishment the moment Trump won the nomination, or at least when he won the presidency. But it’s worth remembering that in the early days of the Trump era, anyone who supported Trump was decidedly fringe. His nomination happened in large part because everyone assumed the centripetal power of the establishment would hold. Throughout the 2016 primaries, the more mainstream Republican candidates tiptoed around Trump, believing that inevitably one of them would take the lead... Bannon, Gorka, and Miller are... the face of today’s conservatism and today’s Republican party."

So all this is going on and independent voters-- who will decide the 2020 elections-- are getting a sense of it. The latest CNN poll (yesterday) finds half the country (50-43%) says Trump should be impeached and removed. That's up from 37% in favor of impeachment and 59% against it at the end of April. 53% of us say he used his office improperly-- up from 48% in September-- and 56% say Trump’s attempts to persuade Ukraine to investigate Biden's son Hunter was more for personal benefit than to root out corruption. Only 36% of voters are buying the bullshit about fighting corruption.

If Democrats turn out and take the lion's share of independent voters next year, Trump will be a one-termer. Dems do not need even one Republican, or, more likely, Trump will win a conservative or racist Democrat for every Republican he loses. That's fine. It doesn't matter. One Republican he'll never get its Max Boot's who's Washington Post column yesterday is more anti-Republican than most Democrats sound, and not just anti-Trump... anti-Republican. He wrote that "Republicans have turned their back on conservative principles to become a cult of personality for an aspiring authoritarian. All voters with a conscience should now turn their back on the Republican Party. For aiding and abetting the president’s egregious abuses of power, the Republican Party deserves to be destroyed from top to bottom. We need a center-right party in this country. What we have instead is a party with no fixed principles that is willing to do anything-- no matter how vile-- to serve its maximum leader, a.k.a. 'the chosen one.'"

Over at The Progressive yesterday, Bill Lueders tracked a few other #NeverTrump Republicans, George Will and Charlie Sykes. Lueders noted that Will wrote that "'aside from some rhetorical bleats, Republicans are acquiescing' as Trump makes public display of his 'gross and comprehensive incompetence.' He argues that if Trump continues to get away with insisting that 'the Constitution’s impeachment provisions are unconstitutional,' the instrument of impeachment will be rendered useless as a check on all future Presidents. There may also be a political price to pay, as Will notes in issuing a warning that to Democrats surely sounds like a dream: 'If Congressional Republicans continue their genuflections at Trump’s altar, the appropriate 2020 outcome will be a Republican thrashing so severe-- losing the House, the Senate, and the electoral votes of, say, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and even Texas-- that even this party of slow-learning careerists might notice the hazards of tethering their careers to a downward-spiraling scofflaw. That conservatives like Will are at the forefront of opposition to Trump creates opportunities for alliances that were once unthinkable. MSNBC commentator Charlie Sykes, a conservative from Wisconsin, says in an interview for this editorial that Trump’s unfitness has the potential to unite the citizenry."

“I would like to think there’s a coalition of the decent out there who are just horrified by watching Donald Trump, by watching what he’s doing, but also what he’s doing to us,” Sykes says. “I would love to see the emergence of a coalition that would set aside ideological differences, at least temporarily, to deal with the current emergency.”

... He believes Trump “poses an existential threat to a lot of the democratic norms that we have right now, and I do think those cross party and ideological lines.”

To this end, Sykes argues, “progressives ought to be willing to make common cause with Republicans and conservatives who are willing to break with Trump. That’s not a surrender of principle. It doesn’t mean that we don’t disagree about things, but it means that at this particular moment in time, it’s more important to be allies than to dwell on what we disagree about. We can go back to debating the tax rates later, but if we want to get past this moment in history, there’s going to have to be this alliance that recognizes the unique emergency that the country faces.”

It’s an intriguing possibility. While Trump’s impeachment now appears certain, it will result in his removal from office only if twenty Republican Senators join Democrats in voting for it. This is unlikely, given the devotion that most Republicans have shown thus far, but it’s not impossible.

The impeachment inquiry has churned up massive new evidence of Trump’s shocking and illegal conduct, as career civil servants reveal the extent to which he has sought to use the power of the presidency to his personal political advantage.

...As Sykes frames it, the question for Republicans is how much more pure humiliation they are willing to take.

“What Republicans right now have to be asking is: Do they really want to support five more years of this? We’re talking about five more years of Donald Trump as the commander-in-chief. Five more years of defending and enabling Donald Trump, particularly as he becomes more and more untethered, more and more unhinged, more and more contemptuous of the truth and of the law.”

There can be little doubt that Republicans are driven largely by political self-interest, as are many Democrats. But that means some of them might still be persuaded to abandon Trump. Sykes, while “immensely disappointed at the degree to which [Republicans] have rationalized and enabled Donald Trump,” has not given up hope that they will turn against him. If a few Republicans do so, a few more will likely follow.

And progressives can be a part of this, as long as they can get beyond blaming their fellow citizens for having the bad judgment to support Trump and instead encourage them to honestly ask: “Do you really want to be part of this anymore?”

The answer, for a broad and growing swath of the American public, is no.

No, we do not want a President who constantly embarrasses us on the global stage.

No, we do not want a foul-mouthed bigot to be America’s face to the world.

No, we are not OK with separating children from their families and locking them in cages.

No, we don’t want a President who doesn’t know the name of his own Defense Secretary, refers to members of his party as “Rupublicans,” and thinks Colorado is on the Mexican border.

No, we will not normalize Donald Trump, his ignorance, his crudeness, his impulsiveness, his meanness of spirit, his contempt for the very notion of Constitutional checks and balances, his open corruption and gross incompetence.

Yet Republican politicians will never abandon Trump as long as they perceive that this will cost them politically. As of midautumn, nine in ten Republican voters and Republican-leaning independents opposed impeachment. But that may change.

To secure the deserved ouster of this President, we need to win over a critical mass of ordinary Trump supporters. That may happen just from the open Congressional debate over impeachment and the weight of daily mounting evidence as to the President’s criminality.

To date, the President’s every response to the possibility of impeachment underscores its necessity. He has set out to obstruct the process, even ordering public officials to refuse to testify about his misbehavior. It is getting clearer that anyone who stands with him stands in opposition to the rule of law.

In the end, there will be some Republicans who will support impeachment-- perhaps not enough to oust Trump from office but enough to more plausibly put the lie to the notion that the push for impeachment is a Democratic plot. There will be more defections of principled conservatives and constituencies that realize, however belatedly, that Trump has been conning them. And the majority of Americans who oppose this President will continue to grow.

What a delightful irony it would be if, in the end, this most determinedly divisive of Presidents ended up bringing the people of this country together.

Damage Control by Nancy Ohanian

Expect Trump To Be Busy Pardoning A Lot Of People In His Last Month In The White House

Josh Dawsey, Carol Leonnig and Tom Hamburger reported in the Washington Post about more trouble for Trump. They wrote that a confidential White House review of Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal-- clearly part of a cover-up. "The research by the White House Counsel’s Office," they wrote, "which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance."

Meanwhile, Schiff told Jake Tapper on State of the Union that the House Intel Committee "will press ahead with its impeachment report even though key witnesses have not testified, in the latest signal that Democrats are moving swiftly in their probe of President Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine... Schiff said the evidence against Trump is 'already overwhelming.'" Felicia Sonmez and Elise Viebeck reported that "Democrats are seeking to prove Trump leveraged military assistance and an Oval Office meeting in exchange for investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and a debunked theory concerning purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Several key figures, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, have declined to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

A federal judge is expected to rule Monday on whether former White House counsel Donald McGahn must testify under subpoena.

Some have argued that Democrats should litigate the matter in the courts to force more witnesses to testify. But Schiff said Sunday that time is of the essence and that Democrats will continue to investigate even after they have submitted their report to the House Judiciary Committee.

“We’re going to continue our investigation… The investigation isn’t going to end,” he said, adding that “we may have other depositions and hearings to do.”

He took particular aim at Bolton, arguing that the former national security adviser will have to explain why he chose to give his account of events “in a book” rather than show the “courage” that Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council Russia adviser, did in testifying before lawmakers last week.

Schiff declined to say how long it might take impeachment investigators to finish their report, saying only that “we’ll take the time that’s necessary.”

Trump, meanwhile, continued to take aim at Democrats, saying in a tweet on Sunday that they “are not getting important legislation done” because of the impeachment inquiry.

“USMCA, National Defense Authorization Act, Gun Safety, Prescription Drug Prices, & Infrastructure are dead in the water because of the Dems!” Trump said, referring to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and other matters.

In another tweet, Trump claimed that public opinion has “turned very strongly against Impeachment, especially in swing states,” though national polls have shown that public sentiment about impeachment has remained stable.

According to an NPR-PBS-Marist poll, 49 percent of respondents supported removing Trump from office in mid-November. This is similar to the 48 percent who said the same in early October in another NPR-PBS-Marist poll.

Administration officials and other Republicans on Sunday continued to defend Trump and sought to keep the focus on Biden, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway argued that there was no quid pro quo because Ukraine eventually received its military aid and Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in late September.

Conway also dismissed the notion that last week’s testimony strengthened Democrats’ hand, claiming that she sees swing-district Democrats “wringing their hands” over what to do.

“I think defense will go on offense if there is a Senate trial, and we’ll be able to call witnesses, we’ll be able to challenge their witnesses, produce other evidence,” Conway said on CBS News’s Face the Nation.

She added, “We simply can’t impeach and remove a democratically elected president from office because they didn’t beat him in 2016, they haven’t a clue how to beat him in 2020, [and] they don’t much like him.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was “pretty sure that every single one” of Conway’s assertions was “inaccurate,” noting that Ukraine received its military aid and Trump met with Zelensky in New York only after a whistleblower made the complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry.

“I understand that the White House is all about making facts slippery,” Himes said. “When the jig was up, yes, then the aid was released, once they [Trump and his allies] were caught.”

Himes also challenged Conway’s claim that Democrats in Congress were losing faith in the allegations.

“I don’t think any Democrat in the Congress looked at what happened over the last two weeks and said, ‘Gosh, there’s nothing there,’ ” Himes said, adding: “Every single day, every single piece of testimony brought up new information.”

Calling Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine a “red herring,” Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) said it’s important for lawmakers to understand why Trump asked Zelensky for an investigation of the Bidens and what Hunter Biden did as a board member for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

Kennedy said it was unfair that Trump was unable to call witnesses or offer a direct rebuttal during the initial proceedings of the impeachment inquiry.

“I think Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s judicial philosophy from the beginning has been ‘guilty,’ ” Kennedy said on Fox News Sunday. But he said that if there is a Senate trial, he does not think the allegations will be “summarily dismissed.”

“I’m in favor of doing it in accordance with due process and [letting] everybody offer whatever they want to in terms of evidence,” Kennedy said, even if that “takes a long time.”

The Louisiana Republican said he was unsure whether Russia or Ukraine hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers during the 2016 election despite the intelligence community’s consensus that Russia was to blame. His comment drew a strong response from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who said, “It was Russia, and as a country, we have to make sure that we absolutely acknowledge it was Russia [and] condemn Russia for it.”

“It actually plays into Russia’s hands if they [Republicans] have this equivalence with Ukraine where we’re saying, ‘Well, maybe we don’t know which one it was,’ ” Swalwell said.

In a separate interview on NBC News’s Meet the Press, Schiff said there is no longer a need for testimony from the anonymous whistleblower-- though Schiff had previously pledged that his panel would hear from the individual.

“We don’t need the whistleblower’s secondhand evidence anymore,” he said. “It would only serve to endanger this person and to gratify the president’s desire for retribution, and that is not a good enough reason to bring in the whistleblower.”

Schiff also pushed back against the argument that he himself should be called to testify in the Senate trial, noting, “I’m not a fact witness.”

“All I can relate is what the witnesses said in deposition and in the open hearings,” he said, arguing that calling him to testify would show a lack of seriousness by Senate Republicans.

On CNN, Schiff also declined to say whether he believes the House Ethics Committee should investigate Rep. Devin Nunes (CA), the top Republican on the intelligence panel, over allegations that he met with an ex-Ukranian official to obtain information about Joe Biden and his son.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said Saturday that it was “quite likely” that Nunes would face a House inquiry. But Schiff said Sunday that he did not want to weigh in on the matter.

“I don’t want to comment on what the Ethics Committee should do, particularly vis-a-vis the ranking member of my committee,” Schiff said.

There seems to be an unending flow of impeachment-related witnesses and information the Democrats could still tap. Sunday night, for example, CNBC reported that Lev-- of Lev and Igor-- "wants to testify to Congress that aides to Rep. Devin Nunes called off a trip to Ukraine this year when they realized they would be required to notify Democratic committee chairman Adam Schiff. The purpose of the trip was to interview two Ukrainian prosecutors who claim to have evidence that could help President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, according to Parnas’ lawyer. Parnas also alleges that Nunes, a leading Trump ally, himself traveled to Vienna last year to interview a potential source of political dirt on Joe Biden.

And Schiff is already in possession of video and audio tapes and photographs from Lev that are supposedly damning to Giuliani, Nunes and possibly Trump himself. "Some of the material sought by congressional investigators is already in possession of federal investigators within the Southern District of New York and thus held up from being turned over, according to sources familiar with the matter."

This morning, Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein, reminded his readers that conservative Republicans stuck with President Richard Nixon in 1974… right up until they didn’t. In other words: it ain't over 'til it's over. "Trump’s seemingly unanimous support right now is similar to the backing that Nixon had even as his original cover-up collapsed in early 1973; as the Senate Watergate committee hearings dominated that summer; as the Saturday Night Massacre unfolded in October; and as the House judiciary committee debated and voted on specific articles of impeachment in 1974. And then: The smoking gun tape came out and it all collapsed immediately. Even Nixon’s strongest supporter on the judiciary committee, the Jim Jordan of the day, who had just vigorously defended the president during televised deliberations, flipped and said he’d vote to impeach on the House floor."

Hannity & Friends Raise The Flag by Nancy Ohanian

You don't go to prison for hackery, of which Nunes is clearly guilty, but Nunes has gone much further than that. This morning, Charlie Sykes wrote that "In the real world, Nunes’ behavior has become so openly outlandish it's drawing fire from former colleagues. Even among the antics of Jordan and Stefanik on the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes stands out. As the hearings wrapped up, former Republican congressman and current (long-shot) presidential candidate Joe Walsh tweeted: 'One takeaway for what it’s worth: @DevinNunes is a stupid, partisan hack.' Perhaps, but Walsh’s critique seems incomplete. It is true that Nunes will never be confused with Abraham Lincoln in either intellect or statesmanship. It also is worth remembering that he is the guy suing a Twitter account called “Devin Nunes' Cow,” for $250 million for (among other things) calling him a 'treasonous cowpoke,' and tweeting that: 'Devin’s boots are full of manure. He’s udder-ly worthless and its pasture time to move him to prison.'"

Walsh is also right that Nunes is, like so many of his colleagues, a political hack. But he’s more than that. Devin Nunes has redefined hackery in the age of Trump.

Old-fashioned hackery generally consisted of loyalty and a willingness to take one for the party, because hacks were concerned with self-preservation. But the thing about this form of hackery is that there were limits-- a point beyond which even the most devoted hack would not go. (See: Watergate.)

So how to explain Nunes and his colleagues?

It is one thing to defend their party’s president against his partisan foes. This is hardly unprecedented. But the innovation of Trumpian hackery is the demand that hacks set their intellect, character and political future on fire.

Nunes is the very model of this new hackery. He is not merely Trump’s defender, he has become his doppelgänger and co-conspirator, willing to peddle discredited propaganda likely cooked up by Russian military intelligence if Trump demands it.

There are two possibilities here: Nunes knows that he is cynically using Trump-friendly talking points because they play well on Fox News, or he actually believes this fetid mass of falsehoods because, as Slate’s Will Saletan told me, “he’s been using his own product.” It’s not clear which is worse, but the question goes to the essence of the new hackery.

I have a strong feeling that a judge and jury will be deciding before this is all over.

Death Of The GOP? Bring It On!

Covering Up The Cover Up by Nancy Ohanian

Devin Nunes, a Central Valley Trumpist goon, is the ranking Republican on the House Intel Committee. One of his staffers, Derek Harvey, has been leaking the whistleblower's name. That's illegal. But Harvey hasn't been arrested and Nunes hasn't fired him. Mark Zaid, one of the whistleblower’s attorneys: "Exposing the identity of the whistleblower and attacking our client would do nothing to undercut the validity of the complaint’s allegations. What it would do, however, is put that individual and their family at risk of harm. Perhaps more important, it would deter future whistleblowers from coming forward in subsequent administrations, Democratic or Republican."

Do you remember Greg Mankiw? His name used to be in the news very regularly, at least for an economist. (He's a New Keynesian.) He's an author and columnist but he's probably best known for having been George W. Bush's chair of the Council of Economic advisors and then for being both Romney campaign's chief economic advisor. Until yesterday, Mankiw was a Republican opponent of Trump's. Yesterday he left the Republican Party. "I just came back from city hall," he wrote on his blog, "where I switched my voter registration from Republican to unenrolled (aka independent)... [T]he Republican Party has largely become the Party of Trump. Too many Republicans in Congress are willing, in the interest of protecting their jobs, to overlook Trump's misdeeds (just as too many Democrats were for Clinton during his impeachment). I have no interest in associating myself with that behavior. Maybe someday, the party will return to having honorable leaders like Bush, McCain, and Romney. Until then, count me out."




Like all the conservatives fleeing the GOP, Mankiw is ferociously anti-progressive and insists the Democrats nominate a conservative, someone more like Bush or Romney. He says he wants to see Status Quo Joe, Mayo Pete, Amy Klobuchar or Andrew Yang as the party nominee. He rails against Bernie and Elizabeth. Of course. Conservative Republicans would be perfectly happy with a conservative Democrat instead of Trump but conservatives don't want an agent of change, especially not Bernie. Just tune in to Comcast TV any day and you will hear NeverTrump Republicans, ex-Republicans or wealthy conservaDems talking about how Bernie makes their skin crawl.

Charlie Sykes is another prominent Republican who opposes Trump. He's the editor of The Bulwark, the conservative anti-Trump bastion. But his column of advice to Republicans on how to survive their impeachment nightmare was in Politico. Denial, he wrote to Senate Republicans, won't work. And there's no escape. They now know they "are going to have to render a verdict not just on Donald’s Trump’s policies, but on his personal conduct... You’ll have to vote up or down and your decision will have consequences that will linger long past this election cycle. The situation is already grim. 'It feels like a horror movie,' one senator recently told the Washington Post. But it is all about to get worse: the evidence, the venue and the president’s conduct. There may be more smoking guns, the trial will be televised, and based on the past few weeks, Trump is likely to be more unhinged than ever. In honor of the season, I offer you some unsolicited Halloween-themed advice to help you navigate the coming nightmare. If you take this advice, you have a chance of saving your party. Ignore it, and, well, you’ve seen what happens in those horror movies, right?

1. Don’t hide in the basement.

So far you and your fellow Republicans have been able to hide behind complaints about process and the claim that the impeachment probe is “illegitimate.” Your colleagues in the House actually stormed the secure hearing room in the basement of the Capitol and complained about the process even as a few dozen GOP lawmakers were inside being part of that process. It was juvenile and self-defeating. Sooner or later, you will have to confront the substance of case; and that is not likely to get any better.

You have to consider the possibility that there may be more transcripts, more tapes, more whistleblowers. The new evidence is not likely to be exculpatory, because the president’s conduct in pressuring foreign governments for dirt on the Bidens and obstructing justice has already been well documented.

The venue will also change. Republicans are complaining that the process has been secretive, but be careful what you wish for. The trial will be must-see television and not even Fox News will be able to keep much of the evidence from your constituents. Polls already suggest historically high support for the impeachment inquiry, and we have not even begun those public hearings. In short, pretending that the facts aren’t facts-- that you’ll be safe behind your flimsy justification-- is not going to help when everything is out in the open. Deal with it.

2. To kill the monster requires confronting how you made him.

As you watch this reckless and unleashed presidency it may have occurred to you how much you have contributed to this moment. You have convinced Trump that he can take you for granted. The president has bullied and berated you and, again and again, you have rolled over. And it has made things only worse.

Trump’s instinct is to escalate both his tactics and his language. The cascade of stories in just the last week-- Ukraine, Syria, the G-7 and Doral, the launching of a criminal probe against his own Department of Justice, his reference to critics as “human scum”-- are a microcosm of his presidency and where we are going.

Between now and the beginning of the Senate trial, that behavior could become even more erratic and you will be forced to defend an ever-widening gyre of inanities, deceptions, abuses of power, episodes of self-dealing and other assorted outrages. Imagine six months of Giuliani butt-dials.

The first step to saving your life is to recognize what the monster feeds on. In this case, it’s your fear of standing up to him.

3. You survive only if you fight back.

All the craziness might suggest that a policy of strategic silence is the best option. This includes not signing on to more resolutions like the one authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham condemning the House inquiry. Graham may be immune to humiliation and indifferent to history’s verdict, but you likely will not be.

You probably also think you can finesse this by finding a middle ground where you can acknowledge that the call to the Ukrainian president was inappropriate and Trump’s behavior questionable, but not impeachable.

But Trump may not let you. The president and his loudest supporters continue to insist that (a) the phone call with the Ukrainian president was “perfect,” (b) there was no quid pro quo, and (c) even if there was one, it was completely appropriate. Indeed, on Monday he urged to stop focusing on process and defend the merits of his actions. “I'd rather go into the details of the case rather than process... Process is good, but I think you ought to look at the case.”

The problem is that “the genius of our great president” demands total fealty. He will insist that acquittal be considered total exoneration, and he intends you to be a part of the whitewash. He wants you to embrace and ratify his conduct; and if you do, you will own it.

4. The sequel is often scarier than the original.

You need to consider the full implications of the precedent you will be setting if you vote to acquit the president. Imagine a second Trump term beyond the reach of credible constitutional accountability. Consider what that would mean for our political culture, constitutional norms and the future of your party.

“The boundaries of acceptable presidential behavior are defined by which actions the political system tolerates or condemns,” writes Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes.

We are already “perilously close to the point at which there may no longer be a national consensus that there’s anything constitutionally problematic about using governmental powers to advance one’s own pecuniary and electoral interests.”

Writes Wittes: “If a substantial group of members of Congress signals not merely that the president’s conduct does not warrant impeachment and removal but also that it does not even warrant branding as intolerable, such conduct will become normalized-- at a great cost to previously unquestioned first principles of constitutional governance-- even if the House impeaches Trump.”

This is why you should pay more attention to the Federalist Papers than Fox News.

On Fox News, the impeachment proceedings will be characterized as a “coup,” or an attempt to “overturn an election.” But they are neither.

5. Your ultimate weapon is always within reach.

Alexander Hamilton clearly envisioned impeachment as a constitutional check on “the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” He understood that impeachment proceedings were, by their nature, political, “as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” He also had no illusions about how divisive the process would be, noting that impeachment “will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community,” and that “in such cases there will always be the gravest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

But the founders reposed their confidence in you; or rather in what they thought the Senate would be. “Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent?” What other body, asked Hamilton, would feel confident enough “to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality,” between the accused “and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?” (Emphasis Hamilton’s.)

There’s a good reason to listen to Hamilton here-- for the sake of the GOP.

Consider this: What if, instead of breaking with Richard Nixon in 1974, Republicans had stuck with him, deciding that Nixon’s impeachment was a test of tribal loyalty? What would the consequences have been if they had voted to acquit him on charges of obstructing justice, lying to the public, contempt of Congress and abuse of power? Specifically, what would it have meant for the Republican Party had it embraced the defense of Nixon’s corruption? If it had been less Barry Goldwater and more Lindsey Graham?

We know what actually happened. Even after abandoning Nixon, the GOP was punished in 1974 and 1976, but it was able to otherwise wipe the stink off relatively quickly, winning back the presidency in 1980 and holding it for 12 years.

But what if the party had gone all Watergate-is-no-big-deal? If it had, it’s unlikely that Ronald Reagan would even have been elected, because the GOP would have been haunted by Nixon for a generation.

In your idle moments, you have perhaps wondered what your legacy will be. Here’s the answer; history will remember what you do over the next few months.

Short term, breaking with Trump will spark a nasty blowback. But imagine for a moment a post-Trumpian Republican Party freed from the baggage of Trumpist corruption. The choice is between a party inextricably tied to Trump, with all of his crudity, dishonesty, lawlessness and arrogance, and a party that has shown that it is capable of being a principled defender of constitutional norms.

At the end of this process, the simple narrative is likely to be that the president has abused his power, broken the law and sold out his country. You have an opportunity to hold him accountable by doing your constitutional duty. History will want to know whether you got scared and shirked it.

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go-- #NeverTrump Republicans Demand Democrats Nominate Biden

Republicans see this & get sick to their stomachs-- & really scared

Dear Republicans Who Lost Your Shitty Party To Trump— Keep Your Muthafucking, Failed Advice About How To Beat Trump To Yourselves

And that goes for everyone who works at— or reads— The Bulwark and half the people who work at MSNBC. The worst political figure anyone can remember stole your party right out from under you. And now you want to tell the lame enough Democratic establishment how to beat Trump? They may be stupid enough to listen. Hopefully no one down the chain from brain-drained Pelosi, Hoyer, Schumer and Perez will pay you any heed.

The last thing the Democrats need is someone like Jeb Bush with a “D” next to his name. Charlie Sykes has some unsolicited thoughts? Shove them right up your lilly white Republican ass, buster!

You know what, we already knew Trump was “a deeply dishonest, erratic, narcissistic, Twitter-addicted bully” (and rapist). The Democraps already shoved a former Republican with a Republican bottom line in her soul as our champion. She lost. We don’t need a senile, racist version of her now. We need exactly what you think we don’t.

Trump could still win reelection, because he has one essential dynamic working in his favor: You.

Trump’s numbers are unmovable, but yours are not. He doesn’t need to win this thing; he needs for you to lose it. There are millions of swing voters who regard Trump as an abomination but might vote for him again if they think you are scarier, more extreme, dangerous, or just annoyingly out of touch.

And, you have some experience at this, don’t you?

Despite the favorable poll numbers and the triumphalism in your blue bubble, you’ve already made a solid start at guaranteeing another four years of Trumpism. Last week’s pile-on of Joe Biden was a good example of how you might eat your own over the next 16 months.

George Will, Charlie Sykes… all the Republican garbage cans with mouths and pens will tell you every single reason Republicans have always/will always tell you about bold agendas like the New Deal will never work.

FUCK YOU, CHARLIE SYKES
FUCK YOU, GEORGE WILL
FUCK YOU MSNBC REPUBLICANS

The Democrats didn’t listen to your advice-- and the advice of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- in 1936. You remember what happened right? FDR won 523 electoral votes. You won 8. FDR won 46 states. You won 2. FDR won 27,747,636 votes (60.8%). You won 16,679,543 (36.5%). Democrats won 334 in the House (plus 8 more for “scary”-- to you-- socialists) and you won 88 seats. 88 seats. 88, you muthafucking assholes. In the Senate your scare tactics left you with 17 seats in the Senate. But minority leader Charlie McNary wore the same bow-ties that George Will was wearing last time I saw a photo of him.

Eat shit and die, you scumbags… and take your conservative Democrap friends with you. No, don’t die, don’t die— live long enough to kill yourselves-- ritually, en masse-- when President AOC is sworn in.

Biden ran for president-- or at least started running-- 6 times. And 5 times-- so far-- Democratic primary voters looked him over and said, collectively, "God Forbid!" Mike Lux worked for one of those campaigns in the '70s when he was just a kid. He says he likes Biden and Mike still embraces the lesser-of-two evils strategy that powers the Democratic establishment. Mike openly admits that he would enthusiastically vote for Biden in a general election against Trump. I know many people who would-- and some who wouldn't. If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for Evil. Joe Biden is Evil-- and Mike made the case very well in his new video. Take a look as Mike Lux tries to teach a mangy old dog-- possibly rabid-- a new trick:

How Many House Republicans Will Trump Drag Down With Him In 2020?

Will voters have had enough of the circus in 2020? In a recession?

In a manner of speaking, 2020 is just around the corner. As long as the Democrats don't commit suicide by nominating another horribly flawed status quo kind of candidate like Biden, Gillibrand or Bloomberg, Pig Man should be a goner. So what about all those enablers and rubber stamps in the House? Can America be rid of them as well? Some but not as many as we would like. But... first let's look at John Harwood's supposition for CNBC that Trump may well be running in a recession his policies (and, to be fair, personality) are rapidly bringing on. And, as Harwood reminds his readers, "Trump's weak public standing leaves him no political cushion if the economy turns down. As he braces for Mueller's findings and the new Democratic-controlled House, his most recent Gallup approval rating was just 40 percent."

Harwood asserted that beyond his legal problems, he's faces "rising odds of becoming the first president to seek re-election during economic recession since Jimmy Carter... [T]he uncertainty on display in gyrating financial markets this week has darkened expectations for Trump's last two years. In the fourth quarter of 2018, forecasters already see growth slowing from the 4.2 percent and 3.5 percent recorded in the second and third quarters, respectively. For 2019 and beyond, they expect growth to slow progressively further as fiscal stimulus from lower taxes and higher spending winds down. Many predict the economy will lapse into recession in 2020."

"A strong dollar, weaker growth abroad, mounting corporate debt, a slowdown in housing and the ongoing havoc that tariffs are wreaking on global supply chains are each taking a toll," Diane Swonk, chief economist for Grant Thornton LLP, wrote this week. "No one knows for sure which straw will break the camel's back, only that they are piling up."

Swonk has accelerated her previous prediction of recession from the second half of 2020 to the first half. In October, the National Association for Business Economics reported that two-thirds of forecasters it surveyed expect recession by the end of Trump's re-election year.

That would represent a historically rare event-- and an ominous one for the president's chances of a second term.

And not just for Señor Trumpanzee. There will still be around 200 Republicans in the House, give or take a couple of prison terms. There will always be non-statistical circumstances in every election but these districts below were won by Republicans with less than 55%, making them, at least classically, vulnerable.

• Alaska- Don Young- 53.3%
• AR-02- French Hill- 52.1%
• CA-01- Doug LaMalfa- 54.9%
• CA-04- Tom McClintock-54.1%
• CA-22- Devin Nunes- 52.7%
• CA-50- Duncan Hunter- 51.8%
• CO-03- Scott Tipton- 51.7%
• FL-15- Ross Spano- 53.0%
• FL-16- Vern Buchanan- 54.6%
• FL-18- Brian Mast- 54.3%
• GA-07- Rob Woodall- 50.1%
• IL-12- Mike Bost- 51.8%
• IL-13- Rodney Davis- 50.5%
• IN-02- Jackie Walorski- 54.8%
• IA-04- Steve King- 50.4%
• KS-02- Steve Watkins- 48.1%
• KY-06- Andy Barr- 51.0%
• MI-03- Justin Amash- 54.4%
• MI-06- Fred Upton- 50.2%
• MI-07- Tim Walberg- 53.8%
• MN-01- Jim Hagedorn- 50.2%
• MN-08- Peter Stauber- 50.8%
• MO-02- Ann Wagner- 51.3%
• Montana- Greg Gianforte- 50.9%
• NE-02- Don Bacon- 51.0%
• NY-01- Lee Zeldin- 52.5%
• NY-02- Peter King- 53.3%
• NY-24- John Katko- 53.1%
• NY-27- Chris Collins- 49.4%
• NC-02- George Holding- 51.4%
• NC-09- ?
• NC-13- Ted Budd- 51.6%
• OH-01- Steve Chabot- 51.8%
• OH-12- Troy Balderson- 51.6%
• PA-01- Brian Fitzpatrick- 51.3%
• PA-10- Scott Perry- 51.4%
• PA-16- Mike Kelly- 51.5%
• TX-02- Dan Crenshaw- 52.9%
• TX-03- Van Taylor- 54.3%
• TX-06- Ron Wright- 53.1%
• TX-10- Michael McCaul- 50.9%
• TX-21- Chip Roy- 50.3%
• TX-22- Pete Olson- 51.4%
• TX-23- Will Hurd- 49.2%
• TX-24- Kenny Marchant- 50.7%
• TX-25- Roger Williams- 53.6%
• TX-31- John Carter- 50.6%
• VA-05- Denver Riggleman- 53.3%
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler- 52.9%
• WI-01- Bryan Steil- 54.6%

That's 50 obvious targets to start with-- ten more more than flipped this cycle. Blue America has already been recruiting candidates in some of those districts. We'll let you know who as soon as we get the high-five from the candidates. In many of these districts there were Blue Dogs running, (discouraging Democrats from voting). In others there were totally flawed candidates and in many the DCCC just refused too engage, often because the candidate was a progressive. Ben Ray Lujan was a terrible DCCC chairman-- weak and stupid. The new one the Democrats just picked, Blue Dog Cheri Bustos, is far worse. If we're going to have a tidal wave in 2020, it will be despite the DCCC, not because of them or even-- in all likelihood-- with their help.

This morning, The Atlantic published an essay by Wisconsin Republican Charlie Sykes, Wisconsin Republicans Are Shooting Themselves In the Foot, that warns the GOP that the kinds of anti-democracy stunts they're pulling in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina won't help with voters but will backfire on them "The Wisconsin GOP’s lame-duck power play," he wrote, "was not the death of democracy. But it was bad enough: petty, vindictive, and self-destructive. It was, as the saying goes, worse than a crime. It was a blunder. And for what?”

In its arrogant insularity, the Wisconsin GOP became a national symbol of win-at-all-costs, norms-be-damned politics. Cut through the overwrought rhetoric and what did the Republican legislators actually accomplish? Not really a whole lot; certainly not enough to justify the political damage they’ve inflicted on themselves. They have managed to energize the progressive base, expose themselves as sore losers, and undermine crucial democratic norms. And in return … they got extraordinarily little.

...Signing the lame-duck legislation would be an especially classless way for Walker to leave office; it will tarnish his reputation in ways that I’m not sure he grasps. And, frankly, it’s just not worth it... For the moment, the Trumpist style of smash-mouth, red-versus-blue, play-to-your-base politics is ascendant. What’s happening now in Wisconsin, and similar moves in Michigan, will only escalate the cycle of hyper-partisanship. Polarization is likely to get worse before it gets better.

I started with a saying and I’ll end with another: “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” It has to stop somewhere. I’d love for it to be in Wisconsin.